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THE VITAL MESSAGE 
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE 



THE VITAL MESSAGE 

BY 

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE 

AUTHOR OF "THE NEW REVELATION," 
ETC. 




NEW ^ISJr YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



'31* 



COPYRIGHT, 1919, 
BY GEORGE H. DOR AN COMPANY 



, -- T l f 



DEC 



o ibig 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 






g)CI.A559035 



PREFACE 

In "The New Revelation" the first dawn 
of the coming change has been described. In 
"The Vital Message " the sun has risen 
higher, and one sees more clearly and 
broadly what our new relations with the Un- 
seen may be. As I look into the future of 
the human race I am reminded of how once, 
from amid the bleak chaos of rock and snow 
at the head of an Alpine pass, I looked down 
upon the far stretching view of Lombardy, 
shimmering in the sunshine and extending 
in one splendid panorama of blue lakes and 
green rolling hills until it melted into the 
golden haze which draped the far horizon. 
Such a promised land is at our very feet 
which, when we attain it, will make our pres- 
ent civilisation seem barren and uncouth. 
Already our vanguard is well over the pass. 
Nothing can now prevent us from reaching 
that wonderful land which stretches so 
clearly before those eyes which are opened 
to see it. 



vi PKEFACE 

That stimulating writer, V. 0. Desertis,, 
has remarked that the Second Coming, 
which has always been timed to follow Ar- 
mageddon, may be fulfilled not by a descent 
of the spiritual to us, but by the ascent of our 
material plane to the spiritual, and the 
blending of the two phases of existence. It 
is, at least, a fascinating speculation. But 
without so complete an overthrow of the 
partition walls as this would imply we know 
enough already to assure ourselves of such 
a close approximation as will surely deeply 
modify all our views of science, of religion 
and of life. What form these changes may 
take and what the evidence is upon which 
they will be founded are briefly set forth in 
this volume. 

Arthur Conan Doyle. 
Crowborotjgh, 

July, 1919. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I The Two Needful Readjustments . 11 

II The Dawning of the Light .... 29 

III The Great Argument 52 

IV The Coming World 87 

V Is It the Second Dawn? 113 

APPENDICES 

A. Dr. Geley's Experiments . . . 141 

B. A Particular Instance . . . 152 

C. Spirit Photography .... 156 

D. The Clairvoyance of Mrs. B. . 162 



vu 



THE VITAL MESSAGE 



THE VITAL MESSAGE 

CHAPTER I 

THE TWO NEEDFUL KEADJUSTMENTS 

It has been our fate, among all the in- 
numerable generations of mankind, to face 
the most frightful calamity that has ever be- 
fallen the world. There is a basic fact which 
cannot be denied, and should not be over- 
looked. For a most important deduction 
must immediately follow from it. That de- 
duction is that we, who have borne the pains, 
shall also learn the lesson which they were 
intended to convey. If we do not learn it 
and proclaim it, then when can it ever be 
learned and proclaimed, since there can 
never again be such a spiritual ploughing 
and harrowing and preparation for the seed? 
If our souls, wearied and tortured during 

11 



12 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

these dreadful five years of self-sacrifice and 
suspense, can show no radical changes, then 
what souls will ever respond to a fresh in- 
flux of heavenly inspiration? In that case 
the state of the human race would indeed be 
hopeless, and never in all the coming cen- 
turies would there be any prospect of im- 
provement. 

"Why was this tremendous experience 
forced upon mankind ? Surely it is a super- 
ficial thinker who imagines that the great 
Designer of all things has set the whole 
planet in a ferment, and strained every na- 
tion to exhaustion, in order that this or that 
frontier be moved, or some fresh combina- 
tion be formed in the kaleidoscope of na- 
tions. No, the causes of the convulsion, and 
its objects, are more profound than that. 
They are essentially religious, not political. 
They lie far deeper than the national squab- 
bles of the day. A thousand years hence 
those national results may matter little, but 
the religious result will rule the world. That 
religious result is the reform of the decadent 
Christianity of to-day, its simplification, its 
purification, and its reinforcement by the 
facts of (Spirit communion and the clear 



TWO NEEDFUL READJUSTMENTS IS 

knowledge of what lies beyond the exit-door 
of death.. The shock of the war was meant 
to rouse us to mental and moral earnest- 
ness, to give us the courage to tear away 
venerable shams, and to force the human 
race to realise and use the vast new revela- 
tion which has been so clearly stated and so 
abundantly proved, for all who will examine 
the statements and proofs with an open 
mind. 

Consider the awful condition of the world 
before this thunder-bolt struck it. Could 
anyone, tracing back down the centuries and 
examining the record of the wickedness of 
man, find anything which could compare 
with the story of the nations during the 
last twenty years! Think of the condition 
of Eussia during that time, with her bru- 
tal aristocracy and her drunken democracy, 
her murders on either side, her Siberian 
horrors, her Jew baitings and her corrup- 
tion. Think of the figure of Leopold of 
Belgium, an incarnate devil who from mo- 
tives of greed carried murder and torture 
through a large section of Africa, and yet 
was received in every court, and was eventu- 
ally buried after a panegyric from a Cardi- 



14 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

nal of the Roman Church — a church which 
had never once raised her voice against his 
diabolical career. Consider the similar 
crimes in the Putumayo, where British capi- 
talists, if not guilty of outrage, can at least 
not be acquitted of having condoned it by 
their lethargy and trust in local agents. 
Think of Turkey and the recurrent massa- 
cres of her subject races. Think of the 
heartless grind of the factories everywhere, 
where work assumed a very different and 
more unnatural shape than the ancient la- 
bour of the fields. Think of the sensuality 
of many rich, the brutality of many poor, 
the shallowness of many fashionable, the 
coldness and deadness of religion, the ab- 
sence anywhere of any deep, true spiritual 
impulse. Think, above all, of the organised 
materialism of Germany, the arrogance, the 
heartlessness, the negation of everything 
which one could possibly associate with the 
living spirit of Christ as evident in the utter- 
ances of Catholic Bishops, like Hartmann 
of Cologne, as in those of Lutheran Pastors. 
Put all this together and say if the human 
race has ever presented a more unlovely 
aspect. When we try to find the brighter 



TWO NEEDFUL READJUSTMENTS 15 

spots they are chiefly where civilisation, as 
apart from religion, has built up necessities 
for the community, such as hospitals, uni- 
versities, and organised charities, as con- 
spicuous in Buddhist Japan as in Christian 
Europe. We cannot deny that there has 
been much virtue, much gentleness, much 
spirituality in individuals. But the churches 
were empty husks, which contained no 
spiritual food for the human race, and had 
in the main ceased to influence its actions, 
save in the direction of soulless forms. 

This is not an over-coloured picture. Can 
we not see, then, what was the inner reason 
for the war? Can we not understand that 
it was needful to shake mankind loose from 
gossip and pink teas, and sword-worship, 
and Saturday night drunks, and self-seeking 
politics and theological quibbles — to wake 
them up and make them realise that they 
stand upon a narrow knife-edge between 
two awful eternities, and that, here and 
now, they have to finish with make-beliefs, 
and with real earnestness and courage face 
those truths which have always been palpa- 
ble where indolence, or cowardice, or vested 
interests have not obscured the vision. Let 



16 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

us try to appreciate what those truths are 
and the direction which reform must take. 
It is the new spiritual developments which 
predominate in my own thoughts, but there 
are two other great readjustments which are 
necessary before they can take their full ef- 
fect. On the spiritual side I can speak with 
the force of knowledge from the beyond. On 
the other two points of reform, I make no 
such claim. 

The first is that in the Bible, which is 
the foundation of our present religious 
thought, we have bound together the living 
and the dead, and the dead has tainted the 
living. A mummy and an angel are in most 
unnatural partnership. There can be no 
clear thinking, and no logical teaching until 
the old dispensation has been placed on the 
shelf of the scholar, and removed from the 
desk of the teacher. It is indeed a wonder- 
ful book, in parts the oldest which has come 
down to us, a book filled with rare knowl- 
edge, with history, with poetry, with oc- 
cultism, with folklore. But it has no 
connection with modern conceptions of re- 
ligion. In the main it is actually antagonis- 
tic to them. Two contradictory codes have 



TWO NEEDFUL READJUSTMENTS 17 

been circulated under one cover, and the re- 
sult is dire confusion. The one is a scheme 
depending upon a special tribal God, intense- 
ly anthropomorphic and filled with rage, 
jealousy and revenge. The conception per- 
vades every book of the Old Testament. 
Even in the psalms, which are perhaps the 
most spiritual and beautiful section, the 
psalmist, amid much that is noble, sings of 
the fearsome things which his God will do 
to his enemies. "They shall go down alive 
into hell." There is the keynote of this an- 
cient document — a document which advo- 
cates massacre, condones polygamy, accepts 
slavery, and orders the burning of so-called 
witches. Its Mosaic provisions have long 
been laid aside. We do not consider our- 
selves accursed if we fail to mutilate our 
bodies, if we eat forbidden dishes, fail to 
trim our beards, or wear clothes of two ma- 
terials. But we cannot lay aside the pro- 
visions and yet regard the document as di- 
svine. No learned quibbles can ever persuade 
an honest earnest mind that that is right. 
One may say: "Everyone knows that that is 
the old dispensation, and is not to be acted 
upon." It is not true. It is continually 



18 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

acted upon, and always will be so long as it is 
made part of one sacred book. William the 
Second acted upon it. His German God 
which wrought such mischief in the world 
was the reflection of the dreadful being who 
ordered that captives be put under the har- 
row. The cities of Belgium were the reflec- 
tion of the cities of Moab. Every hard- 
hearted brute in history, more especially in 
the religious wars, has found his inspiration 
in the Old Testament. " Smite and spare 
not!" "An eye for an eye!", how readily 
the texts spring to the grim lips of the mur- 
derous fanatic. Francis on St. Bartholo- 
mew's night, Alva in the Lowlands, Tilly at 
Magdeburg, Cromwell at Drogheda, the 
Covenanters at Philliphaugh, the Anabap- 
tists of Munster, and the early Mormons of 
Utah, all found their murderous impulses 
fortified from this unholy source. Its red 
trail runs through history. Even where the 
New Testament prevails, its teaching must 
still be dulled and clouded by its sterner 
neighbour. Let us retain this honoured 
work of literature. Let us remove the taint 
which poisons the very spring of our reli- 
gious thought. 



TWO NEEDFUL READJUSTMENTS 19 

This is, in my opinion, the first clearing 
which should be made for the more beauti- 
ful building to come. The second is less im- 
portant, as it is a shifting of the point of 
view, rather than an actual change. It is 
to be remembered that Christ's life in this 
world occupied, so far as we can estimate, 
33 years, whilst from His arrest to His 
resurrection was less than a week. Yet the 
whole Christian system has come to revolve 
round His death, to the partial exclusion of 
the beautiful lesson of His life. Far too 
much weight has been placed upon the one, 
and far too little upon the other, for the 
death, beautiful, and indeed perfect, as it 
was, could be matched by that of many 
scores of thousands who have died for an 
idea, while the life, with its consistent rec- 
ord of charity, breadth of mind, unselfish- 
ness, courage, reason, and progressiveness, 
is absolutely unique and superhuman. Even 
in these abbreviated, translated, and second- 
hand records we receive an impression such 
as no other life can give — an impression 
which fills us with utter reverence. Napo- 
leon, no mean judge of human nature, said 
of it: " It is different with Christ. Every- 



W THE VITAL MESSAGE 

tiling about Him astonishes me. His spirit 
surprises me, and His will confounds me. 
Between Him and anything of this world 
there is no possible comparison. He is really 
a being apart. The nearer I approach Him 
and the closer I examine Him, the more 
everything seems above me." 

It is this wonderful life, its example and 
inspiration, which was the real object of 
the descent of this high spirit on to our 
planet. If the human race had earnestly 
centred upon that instead of losing itself 
in vain dreams of vicarious sacrifices and 
imaginary falls, with all the mystical and 
contentious philosophy which has centred 
round the subject, how very different the 
level of human culture and happiness would 
be to-day! Such theories, with their abso- 
lute want of reason or morality, have been 
the main cause why the best minds have 
been so often alienated from the Christian 
system and proclaimed themselves material- 
ists. In contemplating what shocked their 
instincts for truth they have lost that which 
was both true and beautiful. Christ's death 
was worthy of His life, and rounded off a 
perfect career, but it is the life which He 



TWO NEEDFUL READJUSTMENTS 21 

has left as the foundation for the permanent 
religion of mankind. All the religious wars, 
the private feuds, and the countless miseries 
of sectarian contention, would have been at 
least minimised, if not avoided, had the bare 
example of Christ's life been adopted as 
the standard of conduct and of religion. 

But there are certain other considerations 
which should have weight when we con- 
template this life and its efficacy as an ex- 
ample. One of these is that the very essence 
of it was that He critically examined re- 
ligion as He found it, and brought His ro- 
bust common sense and courage to bear in 
exposing the shams and in pointing out the 
better path. That is the hall-mark of the 
true follower of Christ, and not the mute 
acceptance of doctrines which are, upon the 
face of them, false and pernicious, because 
they come to us with some show of authority. 
What authority have we now, save this very 
life, which could compare with those Jew- 
ish books which were so binding in their 
force, and so immutably sacred that even 
the misspellings or pen-slips of the scribe 
were most carefully preserved ? It is a sim- 
ple obvious fact that if Christ had been 



22 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

orthodox, and had possessed what is so often 
praised as a " child-like faith," there could 
have been no such thing as Christianity. 
Let reformers who love Him take heart as 
they consider that they are indeed follow- 
ing in the footsteps of the Master, who has 
at no time said that the revelation which He 
brought, and which has been so imperfectly 
used, is the last which will come to man- 
kind. In our own times an equally great one 
has been released from the centre of all 
truth, which will make as deep an impres- 
sion upon the human race as Christianity, 
though no predominant figure has yet ap- 
peared to enforce its lessons. Such a figure 
has appeared once when the days were ripe, 
and I do not doubt that this may occur once 
more. 

One other consideration must be urged. 
Christ has not given His message in the first 
person. If He had done so our position 
would be stronger. It has been repeated 
by the hearsay and report of earnest but ill- 
educated men. It speaks much for educa- 
tion in the Roman province of Judea that 
these fishermen, publicans and others could 
even read or write. Luke and Paul were, 



TWO NEEDFUL READJUSTMENTS 23 

of course, of a higher class, but their in- 
formation came from their lowly predeces- 
sors. Their account is splendidly satisfying 
in the unity of the general impression which 
it produces, and the clear drawing of the 
Master's teaching and character. At the 
same time it is full of inconsistencies and 
contradictions upon immaterial matters. 
For example, the four accounts of the resur- 
rection differ in detail, and there is no 
orthodox learned lawyer who dutifully ac- 
cepts all four versions who could not shat- 
ter the evidence if he dealt with it in the 
course of his profession. These details are 
immaterial to the spirit of the message. It 
is not common sense to suppose that every 
item is inspired, or that we have to make 
no allowance for imperfect reporting, in- 
dividual convictions, oriental phraseology, 
or faults of translation. These have, indeed, 
been admitted by revised versions. In His 
utterance about the letter and the spirit we 
could almost believe that Christ had foreseen 
the plague of texts from which we have suf- 
fered, even as He Himself suffered at the 
hands of the theologians of His day, who 
then, as now, have been a curse to the world. 



M THE VITAL MESSAGE 

We were meant to use our reasons and brains 
in adapting His teaching to the conditions 
of our altered lives and times. Much de- 
pended upon the society and mode of ex- 
pression which belonged to His era. To 
suppose in these days that one has literally 
to give all to the poor, or that a starved 
English prisoner should literally love his 
enemy the Kaiser, or that because Christ 
protested against the lax marriages of His 
day therefore two spouses who loathe each 
other should be for ever chained in a life 
servitude and martyrdom — all these asser- 
tions are to travesty His teaching and to 
take from it that robust quality of common 
sense which was its main characteristic. To 
ask what is impossible from human nature 
is to weaken your appeal when you ask for 
what is reasonable. 

It has already been stated that of the three 
headings under which reforms are grouped, 
the exclusion of the old dispensation, the 
greater attention to Christ's life as com- 
pared to His death, and the new spiritual in- 
flux which is giving us psychic religion, it is 
only on the latter that one can quote the au- 
thority of the beyond. Here, however, the 






TWO NEEDFUL READJUSTMENTS 25 

case is really understated. In regard to the 
Old Testament I have never seen the matter 
treated in a spiritual communication. The 
nature of Christ, however, and His teach- 
ing, have been expounded a score of times 
with some variation of detail, but in the 
main as reproduced here. Spirits have their 
individuality of view, and some carry over 
strong earthly prepossessions which they 
do not easily shed; but reading many au- 
thentic spirit communications one finds that 
the idea of redemption is hardly ever spoken 
of, while that of example and influence is 
for ever insisted upon. In them Christ is 
the highest spirit known, the son of God, 
as we all are, but nearer to God, and there- 
fore in a more particular sense His son. He 
does not, save in most rare and special cases, 
meet us when we die. Since souls pass over, 
night and day, at the rate of about 100 a 
minute, this would seem self-evident. After 
a time we may be admitted to His presence, 
to find a most tender, sympathetic and help- 
ful comrade and guide, whose spirit influ- 
ences all things even when His bodily pres- 
ence is not visible. This is the general 
teaching of the other world communications 



26 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

concerning Christ, the gentle, loving and 
powerful spirit which broods ever over that 
world which, in all its many spheres, is His 
special care. 

Before passing to the new revelation, its 
certain proofs and its definite teaching, let 
us hark back for a moment upon the two 
points which have already been treated. They 
are not absolutely vital points. The fresh 
developments can go on and conquer the 
world without them. There can be no sud- 
den change in the ancient routine of our 
religious habits, nor is it possible to con- 
ceive that a congress of theologians could 
take so heroic a step as to tear the Bible in 
twain, laying one half upon the shelf and 
one upon the table. Neither is it to be ex- 
pected that any formal pronouncements 
could ever be made that the churches have all 
laid the wrong emphasis upon the story of 
Christ. Moral courage will not rise to such 
a height. But with the spiritual quickening 
and the greater earnestness which will have 
their roots in this bloody passion of man- 
kind, many will perceive what is reasonable 
and true, so that even if the Old Testament 
should remain, like some obsolete appendix 



TWO NEEDFUL READJUSTMENTS 27 

in the animal frame, to mark a lower stage 
through which development has passed, it 
will more and more be recognised as a docu- 
ment which has lost all validity and which 
should no longer be allowed to influence hu- 
man conduct, save by way of pointing out 
much which we may avoid. So also with the 
teaching of Christ, the mystical portions 
may fade gently away, as the grosser views 
of eternal punishment have faded within 
our own lifetime, so that while mankind is 
hardly aware of the change the heresy of to- 
day will become the commonplace of to- 
morrow. These things will adjust them- 
selves in God 's own time. What is, however, 
both new and vital are those fresh develop- 
ments which will now be discussed. In them 
may be found the signs of how the dry bones 
may be stirred, and how the mummy may 
be quickened with the breath of life. With 
the actual certainty of a definite life after 
death, and a sure sense of responsibility for 
our own spiritual development, a responsi- 
bility which cannot be put upon any other 
shoulders, however exalted, but must be 
borne by each individual for himself, there 
will come the greatest reinforcement of 



28 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

morality which the human race has ever 
known. We are on the verge of it now, but 
our descendants will look upon the past cen- 
tury as the culmination of the dark ages 
when man lost his trust in God, and was so 
engrossed in his temporary earth life that 
he lost all sense of spiritual reality. 



CHAPTBE II 

THE DAWNING OF THE LIGHT 

Some sixty years ago that acute thinker 
Lord Brougham remarked that in the clear 
sky of scepticism he saw only one small 
cloud drifting up and that was Modern 
Spiritualism. It was a curiously inverted 
simile, for one would surely have expected 
him to say that in the drifting clouds of 
scepticism he saw one patch of clear sky, 
but at least it showed how conscious he was 
of the coming importance of the movement. 
Ruskin, too, an equally agile mind, said that 
his assurance of immortality depended upon 
the observed facts of Spiritualism. Scores, 
and indeed hundreds, of famous names could 
be quoted who have subscribed the same 
statement, and whose support would dignify 
any cause upon earth. They are the higher 
peaks who have been the first to catch the 
light, but the dawn will spread until none 

29 



30 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

are too lowly to share it. Let us turn, there- 
fore, and inspect this movement which is 
most certainly destined to revolutionise hu- 
man thought and action as none other has 
done within the Christian era. We shall 
look at it both in its strength and in its 
weakness, for where one is dealing with what 
one knows to be true one can fearlessly in- 
sist upon the whole of the truth. 

The movement which is destined to bring 
vitality to the dead and cold religions has 
been called " Modern Spiritualism." The 
" modern" is good, since the thing itself, in 
one form or another, is as old as history, and 
has always, however obscured by forms, been 
the red central glow in the depths of all 
religious ideas, permeating the Bible from 
end to end. But the word " Spiritualism" 
has been so befouled by wicked charlatans, 
and so cheapened by many a sad incident, 
that one could almost wish that some such 
term as " psychic religion" would clear the 
subject of old prejudices, just as mesmerism, 
after many years of obloquy, was rapidly ac- 
cepted when its name was changed to hyp- 
notism. On the other hand, one remembers 
the sturdy pioneers who have fought under 



THE DAWNING OF THE LIGHT 31 

this banner, and who were prepared to risk 
their careers, their professional success, and 
even their reputation for sanity, by publicly 
asserting what they knew to be the truth. 
Their brave, unselfish devotion must do 
something to cleanse the name for which 
they fought and suffered. It was they who 
nursed the system which promises to be, not 
a new religion — it is far too big for that — 
but part of the common heritage of knowl- 
edge shared by the whole human race. Per- 
fected Spiritualism, however, will probably 
bear about the same relation to the Spiritu- 
alism of 1850 as a modern locomotive to the 
bubbling little kettle which heralded the 
era of steam. It will end by being rather 
the proof and basis of all religions than a 
religion in itself. We have already too many 
religions — but too few proofs. 

Those first manifestations at Hydesville 
varied in no way from many of which we 
have record in the past, but the result aris- 
ing from them differed very much, because, 
for the first time, it occurred to a human 
being not merely to listen to inexplicable 
sounds, and to fear them or marvel at them, 
but to establish communication with them. 



32 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

John Wesley's father might have done the 
same more than a century before had the 
thought occurred to him when he was a wit- 
ness of the manifestations at Epworth in 
1726. It was only when the young Fox girl 
struck her hands together and cried "Do 
as I do" that there was instant compliance, 
and consequent proof of the presence of an 
'intelligent invisible force, thus differing 
from all other forces of which we know. The 
circumstances were humble, and even rather 
sordid, upon both sides of the veil, human 
and spirit, yet it was, as time will more and 
more clearly show, one of the turning points 
of the world's history, greater far than the 
fall of thrones or the rout of armies. Some 
artist of the future will draw the scene — 
the sitting-room of the wooden, shack-like 
house, the circle of half -awed and half -criti- 
cal neighbours, the child clapping her hands 
with upturned laughing face, the dark cor- 
ner shadows where these strange new forces 
seem to lurk — forces often apparent, and 
now come to stay and to effect the complete 
revolution of human thought. We may well 
ask why should such great results arise from 
such petty sources? So argued the high- 



THE DAWNING OF THE LIGHT 33 

browed philosophers of Greece and Eome 
when the outspoken Paul, with the fisher- 
man Peter and his half -educated disciples, 
traversed all their learned theories, and with 
the help of women, slaves, and schismatic 
Jews, subverted their ancient creeds. One 
can but answer that Providence has its own 
way of attaining its results, and that it sel- 
dom conforms to our opinion of what is most 
appropriate. 

We have a larger experience of such phe- 
nomena now, and we can define with some 
accuracy what it was that happened at 
Hydesville in the year 1848. We know that 
these matters are governed by law and by 
conditions as much as any other phenomena 
of the universe, though at the moment it 
seemed to the public to be an isolated and 
irregular outburst. On the one hand, you 
had a material, earth-bound spirit of a low 
order of development which needed a physi- 
cal medium in order to be able to indicate 
its presence. On the other, you had that rare 
thing, a good physical medium. The result 
followed as surely as the flash follows when 
the electric battery and wire are both prop- 
erly adjusted. Corresponding experiments, 



34 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

where effect and cause duly follow, are be- 
ing worked out at the present moment by 
Professor Crawford, of Belfast, as detailed 
in his two recent books, where he shows that 
there is an actual loss of weight of the me- 
dium in exact proportion to the physical 
phenomenon produced.* The whole secret 
of mediumship on this material side appears 
to lie in the power, quite independent of 
oneself, of passively giving up some portion 
of one 's bodily substance for the use of out- 
side influences. "Why should some have this 
power and some not? We do not know — 
nor do we know why one should have the 
ear for music and another not. Each is born 
in us, and each has little connection with our 
moral natures. At first it was only physical 
mediumship which was known, and public 
attention centred upon moving tables, auto- 
matic musical instruments, and other crude 
but obvious examples of outside influence, 
which were unhappily very easily imitated 
by rogues. Since then we have learned that 
there are many forms of mediumship, so 
different from each other that an expert at 

* ' ' The Reality of Psychic Phenomena. ' > 
"Experiences in Psychical Science/' {Wathins.) 



THE DAWNING OF THE LIGHT 35 

one may have no powers at all at the other. 
The automatic writer, the clairvoyant, the 
crystal-seer, the trance speaker, the photo- 
graphic medium, the direct voice medium, 
and others, are all, when genuine, the mani- 
festations of one force, which runs through 
varied channels as it did in the gifts ascribed 
to the disciples. The unhappy outburst of 
roguery was helped, no doubt, by the need 
for darkness claimed by the early experi- 
menters — a claim which is by no means es- 
sential, since the greatest of all mediums, 
D. D. Home, was able by the exceptional 
strength of his powers to dispense with it. 
At the same time the fact that darkness 
rather than light, and dryness rather than 
moisture, are helpful to good results has been 
abundantly manifested, and points to the 
physical laws which underlie the phenomena. 
The observation made long afterwards that 
wireless telegraphy, another etheric force, 
acts twice as well by night as by day, may 
corroborate the general conclusions of the 
early Spiritualists, while their assertion that 
the least harmful light is red light has a 
suggestive analogy in the experience of the 
photographer. 



86 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

There is no space here for the history of 
the rise and development of the movement. 
It provoked warm adhesion and fierce op- 
position from the start. Professor Hare 
and Horace Greeley were among the edu- 
cated minority who tested and endorsed its 
truth. It was disfigured by many grievous 
incidents, which may explain but does not 
excuse the perverse opposition which it en- 
countered in so many quarters. This oppo- 
sition was really largely based upon the ab- 
solute materialism of the age, which would 
not admit that there could exist at the pres- 
ent moment such conditions as might be ac- 
cepted in the far past. When actually 
brought in contact with that life beyond the 
grave which they professed to believe in, 
these people winced, recoiled, and declared 
it impossible. The science of the day was 
also rooted in materialism, and discarded all 
its own very excellent axioms when it was 
faced by an entirely new and unexpected 
proposition. Faraday declared that in ap- 
proaching a new subject one should make up 
one's mind a priori as to what is possible 
and what is not ! Huxley said that the mes- 
sages, even if true, " interested him no more 



THE DAWNING OF THE LIGHT 37 

than the gossip of curates in a cathedral 
city." Darwin said: "God help ns if we 
are to believe such things." Herbert 
Spencer declared against it, but had no time 
to go into it. At the same time all science 
did not come so badly out of the ordeal. 
As already mentioned, Professor Hare, of 
Philadelphia, inventor, among other things, 
of the oxy-hydrogen blow-pipe, was the first 
man of note who had the moral courage, af- 
ter considerable personal investigation, to 
declare that these new and strange develop- 
ments were true. He was followed by many 
medical men, both in America and in 
Britain, including Dr. Elliotson, one of the 
leaders of free thought in this country. Pro- 
fessor Crookes, the most rising chemist in 
Europe, Dr. Eussel Wallace the great 
naturalist, Varley the electrician, Flamma- 
rion the French astronomer, and many 
others, risked their scientific reputations in 
their brave assertions of the truth. These 
men were not credulous fools. They saw 
and deplored the existence of frauds. 
Crookes' letters upon the subject are still 
extant. In very many cases it was the 
Spiritualists themselves who exposed the 



88 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

frauds. They laughed, as the public 
laughed, at the sham Shakespeares and vul- 
gar Cassars who figured in certain seance 
rooms. They deprecated also the low moral 
tone which would turn such powers to 
prophecies about the issue of a race or the 
success of a speculation. But they had that 
broader vision and sense of proportion which 
assured them that behind all these follies 
and frauds there lay a mass of solid evi- 
dence which could not be shaken, though like 
all evidence, it had to be examined before it 
could be appreciated. They were not such 
simpletons as to be driven away from a 
great truth because there are some dishon- 
est camp followers who hang upon its skirts. 
A great centre of proof and of inspira- 
tion lay during those early days in Mr. D. D. 
Home, a Scottish- American, who possessed 
powers which make him one of the most 
remarkable personalities of whom we have 
any record. Home 's life, written by his sec- 
ond wife, is a book which deserves very care- 
ful reading. This man, who in some aspects 
was more than a man, was before the public 
for nearly thirty years. During that time 
he never received payment for his services, 



THE DAWNING OF THE LIGHT 39 

and was always ready to put himself at the 
disposal of any bond-fide and reasonable en- 
quirer. His phenomena were produced in 
full light, and it was immaterial to him 
whether the sittings were in his own rooms 
or in those of his friends. So high were his 
principles that upon one occasion, though 
he was a man of moderate means and less 
than moderate health, he refused the prince- 
ly fee of two thousand pounds offered for a 
single sitting by the Union Circle in Paris. 
As to his powers, they seem to have included 
every form of mediumship in the highest 
degree — self-levitation, as witnessed by 
hundreds of credible witnesses; the han- 
dling of fire, with the power of conferring 
like immunity upon others; the movement 
without human touch of heavy objects ; the 
visible materialisation of spirits; miracles 
of healing; and messages from the dead, 
such as that which converted the hard- 
headed Scot, Robert Chambers, when Home 
repeated to him the actual dying words of 
his young daughter. All this came from a 
man of so sweet a nature and of so charitable 
a disposition, that the union of all qualities 



40 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

would seem almost to justify those who, to 
Home's great embarrassment, were pre- 
pared to place him upon a pedestal above 
humanity. 

The genuineness of his psychic powers 
has never been seriously questioned, and was 
as well recognised in Rome and Paris as in 
London. One incident only darkened his 
career, and it was one in which he was blame- 
less, as anyone who carefully weighs the 
evidence must admit. I allude to the action 
taken against him by Mrs. Lyon, who, after 
adopting him as her son and settling a large 
sum of money upon him, endeavoured to 
regain, and did regain, this money by her 
unsupported assertion that he had per- 
suaded her illicitly to make him the allow- 
ance. The facts of his life are, in my judg- 
ment, ample proof of the truth of the 
Spiritualist position, if no other proof at 
all had been available. It is to be remarked 
in the career of this entirely honest and un- 
venal medium that he had periods in his life 
when his powers deserted him completely, 
that he could foresee these lapses, and that, 
being honest and unvenal, he simply ab- 
stained from all attempts until the power 



THE DAWNING OF THE LIGHT 41 

returned. It is this intermittent character 
of the gift which is, in my opinion, responsi- 
ble for cases when a medium who has passed 
the most rigid tests upon certain occasions 
is afterwards detected in simulating, very 
clumsily, the results which he had once suc- 
cessfully accomplished. The real power hav- 
ing failed, he has not the moral courage to 
admit it, nor the self-denial to forego his fee 
which he endeavours to earn by a travesty 
of what was once genuine. Such an ex- 
planation would cover some facts which 
otherwise are hard to reconcile. We must 
also admit that some mediums are extreme- 
ly irresponsible and feather-headed people. 
A friend of mine, who sat with Eusapia 
Palladino, assured me that he saw her cheat 
in the most childish and bare-faced fashion, 
and yet immediately afterwards incidents 
occurred which were absolutely beyond any 
normal powers to produce. 

Apart from Home, another episode which 
marks a stage in the advance of this move- 
ment was the investigation and report by the 
Dialectical Society in the year 1869. This 
body was composed of men of various 
learned professions who gathered together to 



42 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

investigate the alleged facts, and ended by 
reporting that they really were facts. They 
were unbiased, and their conclusions were 
founded upon results which were very sober- 
ly set forth! in their report, a most convinc- 
ing document which, even now in 1919, after 
the lapse of fifty years, is far more intelli- 
gent than the greater part of current opinion 
upon this subject. None the less, it was 
greeted by a chorus of ridicule by the igno- 
rant Press of that day, who, if the same men 
had come to the opposite conclusion in spite 
of the evidence, would have been ready to 
hail their verdict as the undoubted end of 
a pernicious movement. 

In the early days, about 1863, a book was 
written by Mrs. de Morgan, the wife of 
the well-known mathematician Professor 
de Morgan, entitled "From Matter to 
Spirit.' ' There is a sympathetic preface by 
the husband. The book is still well worth 
reading, for it is a question whether any- 
one has shown greater brain power in treat- 
ing the subject. In it the prophecy is made 
that as the movement develops the more ma- 
terial phenomena will decrease and their 
place be taken by the more spiritual, such 



THE DAWNING OF THE LIGHT 43 

as automatic writing. This forecast has 
been fulfilled, for though physical mediums 
still exist the other more subtle forms great- 
ly predominate, and call for far more dis- 
criminating criticism in judging their value 
and their truth. Two very convincing forms 
of mediumship, the direct voice and spirit 
photography, have also become prominent. 
Each of these presents such proof that it is 
impossible for the sceptic to face them, and 
he can only avoid them by ignoring them. 

In the case of the direct voice one of the 
leading exponents is Mrs. French, an ama- 
teur medium in America, whose work is 
described both by Mr. Funk and Mr. Ean- 
dall. She is a frail elderly lady, yet in her 
presence the most masculine and robust 
voices make communications, even when her 
own mouth is covered. I have myself inves- 
tigated the direct voice in the case of four 
different mediums, two of them amateurs, 
and can have no doubt of the reality of the 
voices, and that they are not the effect of 
ventriloquism. I was more struck by the 
failures than by the successes, and cannot 
easily forget the passionate pantings with 
which some entity strove hard to reveal his 



M THE VITAL MESSAGE 

identity to me, but without success. One of 
these mediums was tested afterwards by 
having the mouth filled with coloured water, 
but the voices continued as before. 

As to spirit photography, the most suc- 
cessful results are obtained by the Crewe 
circle in England, under the mediumship of 
Mr. Hope and Mrs. Buxton.* I have seen 
scores of these photographs, which in sev- 
eral cases reproduce exact images of the 
dead which do not correspond with any pic- 
tures of them taken during life. I have 
seen father, mother, and dead soldier son, 
all taken together with the dead son looking 
far the happier and not the least substan- 
tial of the three. It is in these varied forms 
of proof that the impregnable strength of 
the evidence lies, for how absurd do explana- 
tions of telepathy, unconscious cerebration 
or cosmic memory become when faced by 
such phenomena as spirit photography, ma- 
terialisation, or the direct voice. Only one 
hypothesis can cover every branch of these 
manifestations, and that is the system of ex- 
traneous life and action which has always, 
for seventy years, held the field for any 

*See Appendix. 



THE DAWNING OF THE LIGHT 45 

reasonable mind which had impartially con- 
sidered the facts. 

I have spoken of the need for careful and 
cool-headed analysis in judging the evidence 
where automatic writing is concerned. One 
is bound to exclude spirit explanations un- 
til all natural ones have been exhausted, 
though I do not include among natural ones 
the extreme claims of far-fetched telepathy 
such as that another person can read in your 
thoughts things of which you were never 
yourself aware. Such explanations are not 
explanations, but mystifications and ab- 
surdities, though they seem to have a spe- 
cial attraction for a certain sort of psychical 
researcher, who is obviously destined to go 
on researching to the end of time, without 
ever reaching any conclusion save that of 
the patience of those who try to follow his 
reasoning. To give a good example of valid 
automatic script, chosen out of many which 
I could quote, I would draw the reader's at- 
tention to the facts as to the excavations at 
Glastonbury, as detailed in "The Gate of 
Remembrance" by Mr. Bligh Bond. Mr. 
Bligh Bond, by the way, is not a Spiritualist, 
but the same cannot be said of the writer 



46 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

of the automatic script, an amateur medium, 
who was able to indicate the secrets of the 
buried abbey, which were proved to be cor- 
rect when the ruins were uncovered. I can 
truly say that, though I have read much 
of the old monastic life, it has never been 
brought home to me so closely as by the mes- 
sages and descriptions of dear old Brother 
Johannes, the earth-bound spirit — earth- 
bound by his great love for the old abbey in 
which he had spent his human life. This 
book, with its practical sequel, may be 
quoted as an excellent example of automatic 
writing at its highest, for what telepathic 
explanation can cover the detailed descrip- 
tion of objects which lie unseen by any hu- 
man eye? It must be admitted, however, 
that in automatic writing you are at one end 
of the telephone, if one may use such a simile, 
and you have no assurance as to who is at the 
other end. You may have wildly false mes- 
sages suddenly interpolated among truthful 
ones — messages so detailed in their men- 
dacity that it is impossible to think that they 
are not deliberately false. When once we 
have accepted the central fact that spirits 
change little in essentials when leaving the 



THE DAWNING OF THE LIGHT 47 

body, and that in consequence the world is 
infested by many low and mischievous 
types, one can understand that these unto- 
ward incidents are rather a confirmation of 
Spiritualism than an argument against it. 
Personally I have received and have been 
deceived by several such messages. At the 
same time I can say that after an experience 
of thirty years of such communications I 
have never known a blasphemous, an ob- 
scene or an unkind sentence come through. 
I admit, however, that I have heard of such 
cases. Like attracts like, and one should 
know one's human company before one joins 
in such intimate and reverent rites. In 
clairvoyance the same sudden inexplicable 
deceptions appear. I have closely followed 
the work of one female medium, a profes- 
sional, whose results are so extraordinarily 
good that in a favourable case she will give 
the full names of the deceased as well as the 
most definite and convincing test messages. 
Yet among this splendid series of results I 
have notes of several in which she was a 
complete failure and absolutely wrong upon 
essentials. How can this be explained ? We 
can only answer that conditions were ob- 



48 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

viously not propitious, but why or how are 
among the many problems of the future. 
It is a profound and most complicated sub- 
ject, however easily it may be settled by the 
"ridiculous nonsense" school of critics. I 
look at the row of books upon the left of my 
desk as I write — ninety-six solid volumes, 
many of them annotated and well thumbed, 
and yet I know that I am like a child wading 
ankle deep in the margin of an illimitable 
ocean. But this, at least, I have very clearly 
realised, that the ocean is there and that the 
margin is part of it, and that down that 
shelving shore the human race is destined 
to move slowly to deeper waters. In the next 
chapter, I will endeavour to show what is 
the purpose of the Creator in this strange 
revelation of new intelligent forces imping- 
ing upon our planet. It is this view of the 
question which must justify the claim that 
this movement, so long the subject of sneers 
and ridicule, is absolutely the most impor- 
tant development in the whole history of the 
human race, so important that if we could 
conceive one single man discovering and 
publishing it, he would rank before Chris- 



THE DAWNING OF THE LIGHT 49 

topher Columbus as a discoverer of new 
worlds, before Paul as a teacher of new re- 
ligious truths, and before Isaac Newton as 
a student of the laws of the Universe. 

Before opening up this subject there is 
one consideration which should have due 
weight, and yet seems continually to be over- 
looked. The differences between various 
sects are a very small thing as compared to 
the great eternal duel between materialism 
and the spiritual view of the Universe. That 
is the real fight. It is a fight in which the 
Churches championed the anti-material 
view, but they have done it so unintelligently, 
and have been continually placed in such 
false positions, that they have always been 
losing. Since the days of Hume and Vol- 
taire and Gibbon the fight has slowly but 
steadily rolled in favour of the attack. Then 
came Darwin, showing with apparent truth, 
that man has never fallen but always risen. 
This cut deep into the philosophy of ortho-- 
doxy, and it is folly to deny it. Then again 
came the so-called " Higher Criticism," 
showing alleged flaws and cracks in the very 
foundations. All this time the churches 
were yielding ground, and every retreat gave 



50 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

a fresh jumping-off place for a new assault. 
It has gone so far that at the present mo- 
ment a very large section of the people of 
this country, rich and poor, are out of all 
sympathy not only with the churches but 
with the whole Spiritual view. Now, we in- 
tervene with our positive knowledge and 
actual proof — an ally so powerful that we 
are capable of turning the whole tide of bat- 
tle and rolling it back for ever against ma- 
terialism. We can say: "We will meet you 
on your own ground and show you by ma- 
terial and scientific tests that the soul and 
personality survive." That is the aim of 
Psychic Science, and it has been fully at- 
tained. It means an end to materialism for 
ever. And yet this movement, this Spiritual 
movement, is hooted at and reviled by Rome, 
by Canterbury and even by Little Bethel, 
each of them for once acting in concert, and 
including in their battle line such strange 
allies as the Scientific Agnostics and the 
militant Free-thinkers. Father Vaughan 
and the Bishop of London, the Eev. F. B. 
Meyer and Mr. Clodd, "The Church Times" 
and "The Freethinker," are united in battle, 
though they fight with very different battle 



THE DAWNING OF THE LIGHT 51 

cries, the one declaring that the thing is of 
the devil, while the other is equally clear 
that it does not exist at all. The opposition 
of the materialists is absolutely intelligent 
since it is clear that any man who has spent 
his life in saying "No" to all extramundane 
forces is, indeed, in a pitiable position when, 
after many years, he has to recognise that 
his whole philosophy is built upon sand and 
that "Yes" was the answer from the be- 
ginning. But as to the religious bodies, 
what words can express their stupidity and 
want of all proportion in not running half- 
way and more to meet the greatest ally who 
has ever intervened to change their defeat 
into victory? What gifts this all-powerful 
ally brings with him, and what are the terms 
of his alliance, will now be considered. 



CHAPTER III 

THE GKEAT AEGTJMENT 

The physical basis of all psychic belief 
is that the soul is a complete duplicate of the 
body, resembling it in the smallest particu- 
lar, although constructed in some far more 
tenuous material. In ordinary conditions 
these two bodies are intermingled so that the 
identity of the finer one is entirely obscured. 
At death, however, and under certain condi- 
tions in the course of life, the two divide 
and can be seen separately. Death differs 
from the conditions of separation before 
death in that there is a complete break be- 
tween the two bodies, and life is carried on 
entirely by the lighter of the two, while the 
heavier, like a cocoon from which the living 
occupant has escaped, degenerates and dis- 
appears, the world burying the cocoon with 
much solemnity by taking little pains to 
ascertain what has become of its nobler 

52 



THE GREAT ARGUMENT 53 

contents. It is a vain thing to urge that 
science has not admitted this contention, and 
that the statement is pure dogmatism. The 
science which has not examined the facts 
has, it is true, not admitted the contention, 
but its opinion is manifestly worthless, or 
at the best of less weight than that of the 
humblest student of psychic phenomena. 
The real science which has examined the 
facts is the only valid authority, and it is 
practically unanimous. I have made per- 
sonal appeals to at least one great leader of 
science to examine the facts, however super- 
ficially, without any success, while Sir Wil- 
liam Crookes appealed to Sir George Stokes, 
the Secretary of the RoyaJ Society, one of 
the most bitter opponents of the movement, 
to come down to his laboratory and see the 
psychic force at work, but he took no no- 
tice. What weight has science of that sort ? 
It can only be compared to that theological 
prejudice which caused the Ecclesiastics in 
the days of Galileo to refuse to look through 
the telescope which he held out to them. 

It is possible to write down the names of 
fifty professors in great seats of learning 
who have examined and endorsed these facts, 



54 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

and the list would include many of the great- 
est intellects which the world has produced 
in our time — Flammarion and Lombroso, 
Charles Eichet and Eussel Wallace, Willie 
Eeichel, Myers, Zollner, James, Lodge, and 
Crookes. Therefore the facts have been en- 
dorsed by the only science that has the right 
to express an opinion. I have never, in my 
thirty years of experience, known one sin- 
gle scientific man who went thoroughly into 
this matter and did not end by accepting the 
Spiritual solution. Such may exist, but I 
repeat that I have never heard of him. Let 
us, then, with confidence examine this mat- 
ter of the " spiritual body," to use the term 
made classical by Saint Paul. There are 
many signs in his writings that Paul was 
deeply versed in psychic matters, and one 
of these is his exact definition of the natural 
and spiritual bodies in the service which is 
the final farewell to life of every Christian. 
Paul picked his words, and if he had meant 
that man consisted of a natural body and a 
spirit he would have said so. When he said 
"a spiritual body" he meant a body which 
contained the spirit and yet was distinct 
from the ordinary natural body. That is 



THE GREAT ARGUMENT 55 

exactly what psychic science has now shown 
to be true. 

When a man has taken hashish or cer- 
tain other drugs, he not infrequently has the 
experience that he is standing or floating be- 
side his own body, which he can see stretched 
senseless upon the couch. So also under 
anaesthetics, particularly under laughing 
gas, many people are conscious of a detach- 
ment from their bodies, and of experiences 
at a distance. I have myself seen very clear- 
ly my wife and children inside a cab while 
I was senseless in the dentist's chair. Again, 
when a man is fainting or dying, and his 
system in an unstable condition, it is as- 
serted in very many definite instances that 
he can, and does, manifest himself to others 
at a distance. These phantasms of the liv- 
ing, which have been so carefully explored 
and docketed by Messrs. Myers and Gurney, 
ran into hundreds of cases. Some people 
claim that by an effort of will they can, after 
going to sleep, propel their own doubles in 
the direction which they desire, and visit 
those whom they wish to see. Thus there is 
a great volume of evidence — how great no 
man can say who has not spent diligent 



56 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

years in exploring it — which vouches for the 
existence of this finer body containing the 
precious jewels of the mind and spirit, and 
leaving only gross confused animal func- 
tions in its heavier companion. 

Mr. Funk, who is a critical student of 
psychic phenomena, and also the joint com- 
piler of the standard American dictionary, 
narrates a story in point which could be 
matched from other sources. He tells of an 
American doctor of his acquaintance, and! 
he vouches personally for the truth of the 
incident. This doctor, in the course of a 
cataleptic seizure in Florida, was aware that 
he had left his body, which he saw lying be- 
side him. He had none the less preserved 
his figure and his identity. The thought of 
some friend at a distance came into his mind, 
and after an appreciable interval he found 
himself in that friend's room, half way 
across the continent. He saw his friend, and 
was conscious that his friend saw him. He 
afterwards returned to his own room, stood 
beside his own senseless body, argued with- 
in himself whether he should re-occupy it 
or not, and finally, duty overcoming inclina- 
tion, he merged his two frames together and 



THE GREAT ARGUMENT 57 

continued his life. A letter from him to his 
friend explaining matters crossed a letter 
from the friend, in which he told how he also 
had been aware of his presence. The in- 
cident is narrated in detail in Mr. Funk's 
"Psychic Riddle." 

I do not understand how any man can ex- 
amine the many instances coming from va- 
rious angles of approach without recognis- 
ing that there really is a second body of this 
sort, which incidentally goes far to account 
for all stories, sacred or profane, of ghosts, 
apparitions and visions. Now, what is this 
second body, and how does it fit into modern 
religious revelation? 

"What it is, is a difficult question, and yet 
when science and imagination unite, as Tyn- 
dall said they should unite, to throw a search- 
light into the unknown, they may produce a 
beam sufficient to outline vaguely what will 
become clearer with the future advance of 
our race. Science has demonstrated that 
while ether pervades everything the ether 
which is actually in a body is different from 
the ether outside it. "Bound" ether is the 
name given to this, which Fresnel and others 
have shown to be denser. Now, if this fact 



58 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

be applied to the human body, the result 
would be that, if all that is visible of that 
body were removed, there would still re- 
main a complete and absolute mould of the 
body, formed in bound ether which would 
be different from the ether around it. This 
argument is more solid than mere specula- 
tion, and it shows that even the soul may 
come to be defined in terms of matter and is 
not altogether "such stuff as dreams are 
made of." 

It has been shown that there is some good 
evidence for the existence of this second 
body apart from psychic religion, but to 
those who have examined that religion it is 
the centre of the whole system, sufficiently 
real to be recognised by clairvoyants, to be 
heard by clairaudients, and even to make an 
exact impression upon a photographic plate. 
Of the latter phenomenon, of which I have 
had some very particular opportunities of 
judging, I have no more doubt than I have 
of the ordinary photography of commerce. 
It had already been shown by the astrono- 
mers that the sensitized plate is a more deli- 
cate recording instrument than the human 
retina, and that it can show stars upon a 



THE GREAT ARGUMENT 59 

long exposure which the eye has never seen. 
It would appear that the spirit world is 
really so near to us that a very little extra 
help under correct conditions of medium- 
ship will make all the difference. Thus the 
plate, instead of the eye, may bring the 
loved face within the range of vision, while 
the trumpet, acting as a megaphone, may 
bring back the familiar voice where the 
spirit whisper with no mechanical aid was 
still inaudible. So loud may the latter phe- 
nomenon be that in one case, of which I have 
the record, the dead man's dog was so ex- 
cited at hearing once more his master's 
voice that he broke his chain, and deeply 
scarred the outside of the seance room door 
in his efforts to force an entrance. 

Now, having said so much of the spirit 
body, and having indicated that its presence 
is not vouched for by only one line of evi- 
dence or school of thought, let us turn to 
what happens at the time of death, accord- 
ing to the observation of clairvoyants on this 
side and the posthumous accounts of the 
dead upon the other. It is exactly what we 
should expect to happen, granted the double 
identity. In a painless and natural process 



60 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

the lighter disengages itself from the 
heavier, and slowly draws itself off until it 
stands with the same mind, the same emo- 
tions, and an exactly similar body, beside 
the couch of death, aware of those around 
and yet unable to make them aware of it, 
save where that finer spiritual eyesight 
called clairvoyance exists. How, we may 
well ask, can it see without the natural or- 
gans? How did the hashish victim see his 
own unconscious body? How did the 
Florida doctor see his friend? There is a 
power of perception in the spiritual body 
which does give the power. We can say no 
more. To the clairvoyant the new spirit 
seems like a filmy outline. To the ordinary 
man it is invisible. To another spirit it 
would, no doubt, seem as normal and sub- 
stantial as we appear to each other. There 
is some evidence that it refines with time, 
and is therefore nearer to the material at the 
moment of death or closely after it, than 
after a lapse of months or years. Hence, it 
is that apparitions of the dead are most clear 
and most common about the time of death, 
and hence also, no doubt, the fact that the 
cataleptic physician already quoted was seen 



THE GREAT ARGUMENT 61 

and recognised by his friend. The meshes 
of his ether, if the phrase be permitted, were 
still heavy with the matter from which they 
had only just been disentangled. 

Having disengaged itself from grosser 
matter, what happens to this spirit body, 
the precious bark which bears our all in all 
upon this voyage into unknown seas % Very 
many accounts have come back to us, verbal 
and written, detailing the experiences of 
those who have passed on. The verbal are 
by trance mediums, whose utterances appear 
to be controlled by outside intelligences. 
The written from automatic writers whose 
script is produced in the same way. At these 
words the critic naturally and reasonably 
shies, with a "What nonsense! How can 
you control the statement of this medium 
who is consciously or unconsciously pre- 
tending to inspiration?" This is a healthy 
scepticism, and should animate every ex- 
perimenter who tests a new medium. The 
proofs must lie in the communication itself. 
If they are not present, then, as always, we 
must accept natural rather than unknown 
explanations. But they are continually 
present, and in such obvious forms that no 



62 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

one can deny them. There is a certain pro- 
fessional medium to whom I have sent many 
mothers who were in need of consolation. 
I always ask the applicants to report the re- 
sult to me, and I have their letters of sur- 
prise and gratitude before me as I write. 
" Thank you for this beautiful and interest- 
ing experience. She did not make a single 
mistake about their names, and everything 
she said was correct. ' ' In this case there was 
a rift between husband and wife before 
death, but the medium was able, unaided, to 
explain and clear up the whole matter, men- 
tioning the correct circumstances, and names 
of everyone concerned, and showing the rea- 
sons for the non-arrival of certain letters, 
which had been the cause of the misunder- 
standing. The next case was also one of 
husband and wife, but it is the husband who 
is the survivor. He says: "It was a most 
successful sitting. Among other things, I 
addressed a remark in Danish to my wife 
(who is a Danish girl), and the answer came 
back in English without the least hesita- 
tion." The next case was again of a man 
who had lost a very dear male friend. "I 
have had the most wonderful results with 



THE GREAT ARGUMENT 63 

Mrs. to-day. I cannot tell you the joy 

it has been to me. Many grateful thanks for 

your help." The next one says : "Mrs. 

was simply wonderful. If only more people 
knew, what agony they would be spared." 
In this case the wife got in touch with the 
husband, and the medium mentioned cor- 
rectly five dead relatives who were in his 
company. The next is a case of mother and 

son. "I saw Mrs. to-day, and obtained 

very wonderful results. She told me near- 
ly everything quite correctly — a very few 
mistakes." The next is similar. "We were 
quite successful. My boy even reminded me 
of something that only he and I knew." 
Says another: "My boy reminded me of the 
day when he sowed turnip seed upon the 
lawn. Only he could have known of this." 
These are fair samples of the letters, of 
which I hold a large number. They are from 
people who present themselves from among 
the millions living in London, or the 
provinces, and about whose affairs the me- 
dium had no possible normal way of know- 
ing. Of all the very numerous cases which I 
have sent to this medium I have only had a 
few which have been complete failures. On 



64. L THE VITAL MESSAGE 

quoting my results to Sir Oliver Lodge, lie 
remarked that his own experience with an- 
other medium had been almost identical. It 
is no exaggeration to say that our British 
telephone systems would probably give a 
larger proportion of useless calls. How is 
any critic to get beyond these facts save by 
ignoring or misrepresenting them ? Healthy 
scepticism is the basis of all accurate ob- 
servation, but there comes a time when in- 
credulity means either culpable ignorance 
or else imbecility, and this time has been long 
past in the matter of spirit intercourse. 

In my own case, this medium mentioned 
correctly the first name of a lady who had 
died in our house, gave several very char- 
acteristic messages from her, described the 
only two dogs which we have ever kept, and 
ended by saying that a young officer was 
holding up a gold coin by which I would 
recognise him. I had lost my brother-in- 
law, an army doctor, in the war, and I had 
given him a spade guinea for his first fee, 
which he always wore on his chain. There 
were not more than two or three close rela- 
tives who knew about this incident, so that 
the test was a particularly good one. She 



THE GREAT ARGUMENT 65 

made no incorrect statements, though some 
were vague. After I had revealed the iden- 
tity of this medium several pressmen at- 
tempted to have test seances with her — 
a test seance being, in most cases, a seance 
which begins by breaking every psychic con- 
dition and making success most improbable. 
One of these gentlemen, Mr. Ulyss Rogers, 
had very fair results. Another sent from 
"Truth" had complete failure. It must be 
understood that these powers do not work 
from the medium, but through the medium, 
and that the forces in the beyond have not 
the least sympathy with a smart young press- 
man in search of clever copy, while they 
have a very different feeling to a bereaved 
mother who prays with all her broken heart 
that some assurance may be given her that 
the child of her love is not gone from her 
for ever. When this fact is mastered, and 
it is understood that "Stand and deliver" 
methods only excite gentle derision on the 
other side, we shall find some more intelli- 
gent manner of putting things of the spirit 
to the proof.* 
I have dwelt upon these results,. wHcK 

* See Appendix D. 



66 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

could be matched by other mediums, to 
show that we have solid and certain reasons 
to say that the verbal reports are not from 
the mediums themselves. Readers of Ar- 
thur Hill's " Psychical Investigations" will 
find many even more convincing cases. So 
in the written communications, I have in a 
previous paper pointed to the "Gate of Re- 
membrance" case, but there is a great mass 
of material which proves that, in spite of 
mistakes and failures, there really is a chan- 
nel of communication, fitful and evasive 
sometimes, but entirely beyond coincidence 
or fraud. These, then, are the usual means 
by which we receive psychic messages, 
though table tilting, ouija boards, glasses 
upon a smooth surface, or anything which 
can be moved by the vital animal-magnetic 
force already discussed will equally serve 
the purpose. Often information is con- 
veyed orally or by writing which could not 
have been known to anyone concerned. Mr. 
Wilkinson has given details of the case 
where his dead son drew attention to the 
fact that a curio (a coin bent by a bullet) 
had been overlooked among his effects. Sir 
William Barrett has narrated how a young 



THE GREAT ARGUMENT 67, 

officer sent a message leaving a pearl tie-pin 
to a friend. No one knew that such a pin 
existed, but it was found among his things. 
The death of Sir Hugh Lane was given at 
a private seance in Dublin before the de- 
tails of the Lusitania disaster had been pub- 
lished.* On that morning we ourselves, in 
a small seance, got the message "It is ter- 
rible, terrible, and will greatly affect the 
war, " at a time when we were convinced that 
no great loss of life could have occurred. 
Such examples are very numerous, and are 
only quoted here to show how impossible it 
is to invoke telepathy as the origin of such 
messages. There is only one explanation 
which covers the facts. They are what they 
say they are, messages from those who have 
passed on, from the spiritual body which 
was seen to rise from the deathbed, which 
has been so often photographed, which per- 
vades all religion in every age, and which has 
been able, under proper circumstances, to 
materialise back into a temporary solidity 
so that it could walk and talk like a mortal, 
whether in Jerusalem two thousand years 

* The details of both these latter cases are to be found in 
"Voices from the Void" by Mrs. Travers Smith, a book con- 
taining some well weighed evidence. 



68 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

ago, or in the laboratory of Mr. Crookes, in 
Mornington Road, London. 

Let us for a moment examine the facts in 
this Crookes' episode. A small book exists 
which describes them, though it is not as 
accessible as it should be. In these wonder- 
ful experiments, which extended over several 
years, Miss Florrie Cook, who was a young 
lady of from 16 to 18 years of age, was re- 
peatedly confined in Prof. Crookes' study, 
the door being locked on the inside. Here 
she lay unconscious upon a couch. The spec- 
tators assembled in the laboratory, which 
was separated by a curtained opening from 
the study. After a short interval, through 
this opening there emerged a lady who was 
in all ways different from Miss Cook. She 
gave her earth name as Katie King, and she 
proclaimed herself to be a materialised 
spirit, whose mission it was to carry the 
knowledge of immortality to mortals. She 
was of great beauty of face, figure, and man- 
ner. She was four and a half inches taller 
than Miss Cook, fair, whereas the latter was 
dark, and as different from her as one 
woman could be from another. Her pulse 
rate was markedly slower. She became for 



THE GREAT ARGUMENT 69 

the time entirely one of the company, walk- 
ing about, addressing each person present, 
and taking delight in the children. She 
made no objection to photography or any 
other test. Forty-eight photographs of dif- 
ferent degrees of excellence were made of 
her. She was seen at the same time as the 
medium on several occasions. Finally she 
departed, saying that her mission was over 
and that she had other work to do. "When 
she vanished materialism should have van- 
ished also, if mankind had taken adequate 
notice of the facts. 

Now, what can the fair-minded inquirer 
say to such a story as that — one of many, 
but for the moment we are concentrating 
upon it? Was Mr. Crookes a blasphemous 
liar ? But there were very many witnesses, 
as many sometimes as eight at a single 
sitting. And there are the photograx^hs 
which include Miss Cook and show that the 
two women were quite different. Was he 
honestly mistaken? But that is inconceiv- 
able. Bead the original narrative and see 
if you can find any solution save that it is 
true. If a man can read that sober, cau- 
tious statement and not be convinced, then 



70 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

assuredly his brain is out of gear. Finally, 
ask yourself whether any religious mani- 
festation in the world has had anything like 
the absolute proof which lies in this one. 
Cannot the orthodox see that instead of 
combating such a story, or talking non- 
sense about devils, they should hail that 
which is indeed the final answer to that ma- 
terialism which is their really dangerous 
enemy. Even as I write, my eye falls upon 
a letter on my desk from an officer who had 
lost all faith in immortality and become an 
absolute materialist. "I came to dread my 
return home, for I cannot stand hypocrisy, 
and I knew well my attitude would cause 
some members of my family deep grief. 
Your book has now brought me untold com- 
fort, and I can face the future cheerfully.' 7 
Are these fruits from the Devil's tree, you 
timid orthodox critic? 

Having then got in touch with our dead, 
we proceed, naturally, to ask them how it is 
with them, and under what conditions they 
exist. It is a very vital question, since what 
has befallen them yesterday will surely be- 
fall us to-morrow. But the answer is tid- 
ings of great joy. Of the new vital mes- 



THE GREAT ARGUMENT 71 

sage to humanity nothing is more important 
than that. It rolls away all those horrible 
man-bred fears and fancies, founded upon 
morbid imaginations and the wild phrases 
of the oriental. We come upon what is sane, 
what is moderate, what is reasonable, what 
is consistent with gradual evolution and 
with the benevolence of God. Were there 
ever any conscious blasphemers upon earth 
who have insulted the Deity so deeply as 
those extremists, be they Calvinist, Roman 
Catholic, Anglican, or Jew, who pictured 
with their distorted minds an implacable 
torturer as the Ruler of the Universe ! 

The truth of what is told us as to the life 
beyond can in its very nature never be ab- 
solutely established. It is far nearer to 
complete proof, however, than any religious 
revelation which has ever preceded it. We 
have the fact that these accounts are mixed 
up with others concerning our present life 
which are often absolutely true. If a spirit 
can tell the truth about our sphere, it is diffi- 
cult to suppose that he is entirely false about 
his own. Then, again, there is a very great 
similarity about such accounts, though their 
origin may be from people very far apart. 



72 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

Thus though "non- veridical," to use the 
modern jargon, they do conform to all our 
canons of evidence. A series of books which 
have attracted far less attention than they 
deserve have drawn the coming life in very 
close detail. These books are not found on 
railway bookstalls or in popular libraries, 
but the successive editions through which 
they pass show that there is a deeper public 
which gets what it wants in spite of artificial 
obstacles. 

Looking over the list of my reading I find, 
besides nearly a dozen very interesting and 
detailed manuscript accounts, such pub- 
lished narratives as " Claude's Book," pur- 
porting to come from a young British avi- 
ator ; "Thy Son Liveth," from an American 
soldier, "Private Dowding"; "Raymond," 
from a British soldier; "Do Thoughts Per- 
ish % ' ' which contains accounts from several 
British soldiers and others; "I Heard a 
iiVoice," where a well-known K.C., through 
the mediumship of his two young daughters, 
has a very full revelation of the life be- 
yond; "After Death," with the alleged ex- 
periences of the famous Miss Julia Ames; 
"The Seven Purposes," from an American 



THE GREAT ARGUMENT 73 

pressman, and many others. They differ 
much in literary skill and are not all equally 
impressive, but the point which must strike 
any impartial mind is the general agreement 
of these various accounts as to the conditions 
of spirit life. An examination would show 
that some of them must have been in the 
press at the same time, so that they could 
not have each inspired the other. ' ' Claude 's 
Book" and "Thy Son Livetk" appeared at 
nearly the same time on different sides of 
the Atlantic, but they agree very closely. 
"Raymond" and "Do Thoughts Perish?" 
must also have been in the press together, 
but the scheme of things is exactly the same. 
Surely the agreement of witnesses must 
here, as in all cases, be accounted as a test 
of truth. They differ mainly, as it seems 
to me, when they deal with their own future,' 
including speculations as to reincarnation, 
etc., which may well be as foggy to them as 
it is to us, or systems of philosophy where 
again individual opinion is apparent. 

Of all these accounts the one which is most 
deserving of study is "Raymond." This is 
so because it has been compiled from sev- 
eral famous mediums working independent- 



74 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

ly of each other, and has been checked and 
chronicled by a man who is not only one of 
the foremost scientists of the world, and 
probably the leading intellectual force in 
Europe, but one who has also had a unique 
experience of the precautions necessary for 
the observation of psychic phenomena. The 
bright and sweet nature of the young soldier 
upon the other side, and his eagerness to 
tell of his experience is also a factor which 
will appeal to those who are already satis- 
fied as to the truth of the communications. 
For all these reasons it is a most important 
document — indeed it would be no exaggera- 
tion to say that it is one of the most impor- 
tant in recent literature. It is, as I believe, 
an authentic account of the life in the be- 
yond, and it is often more interesting from 
its sidelights and reservations than for its 
actual assertions, though the latter bear the 
stamp of absolute frankness and sincerity. 
The compilation is in some ways faulty. Sir 
Oliver has not always the art of writing so 
as to be understanded of the people, and his 
deeper and more weighty thoughts get in 
the way of the clear utterances of his son. 
Then again, in his anxiety to be absolutely 



THE GREAT ARGUMENT 75 

accurate, Sir Oliver has reproduced the fact 
that sometimes Raymond is speaking direct, 
and sometimes the control is reporting what 
Raymond is saying, so that the same para- 
graph may turn several times from the first 
person to the third in a manner which must 
be utterly unintelligible to those who are 
not versed in the subject. Sir Oliver will, 
I am sure, not be offended if I say that, 
having satisfied his conscience by the pres- 
ent edition, he should now leave it for refer- 
ence, and put forth a new one which should 
contain nothing but the words of Raymond 
and his spirit friends. Such a book, pub- 
lished at a low price, would, I think, have 
an amazing effect, and get all this new 
teaching to the spot that God has marked 
for it — the minds and hearts of the people. 

So much has been said here about medium- 
ship that perhaps it would be well to con- 
sider this curious condition a little more 
closely. The question of mediumship, what 
it is and how it acts, is one of the most mys- 
terious in the whole range of science. It is 
a common objection to say if our dead are 
there why should we only hear of them 
through people by no means remarkable for 



76 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

moral or mental gifts, who are often paid 
for their ministration. It is a plausible ar- 
gument, and yet when we receive a telegram 
from a brother in Australia we do not say : 
"It is strange that Tom should not com- 
municate with me direct, but that the pres- 
ence of that half -educated fellow in the tele- 
graph office should be necessary." The 
medium is in truth a mere passive machine, 
clerk and telegraph in one. Nothing comes 
from him. Every message is through him. 
Why he or she should have the power more 
than anyone else is a very interesting prob- 
lem. This power may best be defined as the 
capacity for allowing the bodily powers, 
physical or mental, to be used by an outside 
influence. In its higher forms there is tem- 
porary extinction of personality and the sub- 
stitution of some other controlling spirit. 
At such times the medium may entirely lose 
consciousness, or he may retain it and be 
aware of some external experience which has 
been enjoyed by his own entity while his 
bodily house has been filled by the temporary 
tenant. Or the medium may retain con- 
sciousness, and with eyes and ears attuned 
to a higher key than the normal man can at- 



THE GREAT ARGUMENT 77 

tain, lie may see and hear what is beyond 
our senses. Or in writing mediumship, a 
motor centre of the brain regulating the 
nerves and muscles of the arm may be con- 
trolled while all else seems to be normal. Or 
it may take the more material form of the 
exudation of a strange white evanescent 
dough-like substance called the ectoplasm, 
which has been frequently photographed by 
scientific enquirers in different stages of its 
evolution, and which seems to possess an in- 
herent quality of shaping itself into parts 
or the whole of a body, beginning in a putty- 
like mould and ending in a resemblance to 
perfect human members. Or the ectoplasm, 
which seems to be an emanation of the me- 
dium to the extent that whatever it may 
weigh is so much subtracted from his sub- 
stance, may be used as projections or rods 
which can convey objects or lift weights. A 
friend, in whose judgment and veracity I 
have absolute confidence, was present at one 
of Dr. Crawford's experiments with Kath- 
leen Goligher, who is, it may be remarked, an 
unpaid medium. My friend touched the 
column of force, and found it could be felt 
by the hand though invisible to the eye. 



78 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

It is clear that we are in touch, with some 
entirely new form both of matter and of 
energy. We know little of the properties of 
this extraordinary substance save that in its 
materialising form it seems extremely sen- 
sitive to the action of light. A figure built 
up in it and detached from the medium dis- 
solves in light quicker than a snow image 
tinder a tropical sun, so that two successive 
flash-light photographs would show the one 
a perfect figure, and the next an amorphous 
mass. "When still attached to the medium 
the ectoplasm flies back with great force on 
exposure to light, and, in spite of the laugh- 
ter of the scoffers, there is none the less good 
evidence that several mediums have been 
badly injured by the recoil after a light has 
suddenly been struck by some amateur de- 
tective. Professor Geley has, in his recent 
experiments, described the ectoplasm as ap- 
pearing outside the black dress of his me- 
dium as if a hoar frost had descended upon 
her, then coalescing into a continuous sheet 
of white substance, and oozing down until 
it formed a sort of apron in front of her.* 

* For Geley 's Experiments, vide Appendix A. 



THE GREAT ARGUMENT 79 

This process lie has illustrated by a very 
complete series of photographs. 

These are a few of the properties of me- 
diuinskip. There are also the beautiful phe- 
nomena of the production of lights, and the 
rarer, but for evidential purposes even more 
valuable, manifestations of spirit photog- 
raphy. The fact that the photograph does 
not correspond in many cases with any which 
existed in life, must surely silence the scof- 
fer, though there is a class of bigoted sceptic 
who would still be sneering if an Archangel 
alighted in Trafalgar Square. Mr. Hope 
and Mrs. Buxton, of Crewe, have brought 
this phase of mediumship to great perfec- 
tion, though others have powers in that di- 
rection. Indeed, in some cases it is difficult 
to say who the medium may have been, for 
in one collective family group which was 
taken in the ordinary way, and was sent me 
by a master in a well known public school, 
the young son who died has appeared in the 
plate seated between his two little brothers. 

As to the personality of mediums, they 
have seemed to me to be very average speci- 
mens of the community, neither markedly 
better nor markedly worse. I know many, 



80 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

and I have never met anything in the least 
like " Sludge," a poem which Browning 
might be excused for writing in some crisis 
of domestic disagreement, but which it was 
inexcusable to republish since it is admitted 
to be a concoction, and the exposure de- 
scribed to have been imaginary. The critic 
often uses the term medium as if it neces- 
sarily meant a professional, whereas every 
investigator has found some of his best re- 
sults among amateurs. In the two finest 
seances I ever attended, the psychic, in each 
case a man of moderate means, was resolute- 
ly determined never directly or indirectly 
to profit by his gift, though it entailed very 
exhausting physical conditions. I have not 
heard of a clergyman of any denomination 
who has attained such a pitch of altruism — 
nor is it reasonable to expect it. As to pro- 
fessional mediums, Mr. Vout Peters, one of 
the most famous, is a diligent collector of 
old books and an authority upon the Eliza- 
bethan drama ; while Mr. Dickinson, another 
very remarkable discerner of spirits, who 
named twenty-four correctly during two 
meetings held on the same day, is employed 
in loading canal barges. This man is one 



THE GREAT ARGUMENT 81 

of the most gifted clairvoyants in England, 
though Tom Tyrrell the weaver, Aaron Wil- 
kinson, and others are very marvellous. Tyr- 
rell, who is a man of the Anthony of Padua 
type, a walking saint, beloved of animals 
and children, is a figure who might have 
stepped out of some legend of the church. 
Thomas, the powerful physical medium, is 
a working coal miner. Most mediums take 
their responsibilities very seriously and view 
their work in a religious light. There is no 
denying that they are exposed to very par- 
ticular temptations, for the gift is, as I have 
explained elsewhere, an intermittent one, 
and to admit its temporary absence, and so 
discourage one's clients, needs greater moral 
principle than all men possess. Another 
temptation to which several great mediums 
have succumbed is that of drink. This comes 
about in a very natural way, for overworking 
the power leaves them in a state of physical 
prostration, and the stimulus of alcohol af- 
fords a welcome relief, and may tend at last 
to become a custom and finally a curse. Al- 
coholism always weakens the moral sense, 
so that these degenerate mediums yield them- 
selves more readily to fraud, with the result; 



82 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

that several who had deservedly won hon- 
oured names and met all hostile criticism 
have, in their later years, been detected in 
the most contemptible tricks. It is a thou- 
sand pities that it should be so, but if the 
Court of Arches were to give up its secrets, 
it would be found that tippling and moral 
degeneration were by no means confined to 
psychics. At the same time, a psychic is so 
peculiarly sensitive that I think he or she 
would always be well advised to be a life long 
abstainer — as many actually are. 

As to the method by which they attain 
their results they have, when in the trance 
state, no recollection. In the case of normal 
clairvoyants and clairaudients, the informa- 
tion comes in different ways. Sometimes it 
is no more than a strong mental impression 
which gives a name or an address. Some- 
times they say that they see it written up 
before them. Sometimes the spirit figures 
seem to call it to them. "They yell it at 
me," said one. We need more first-hand 
accounts of these matters before we can 
formulate laws. 

It has been stated in a previous book by 
the author, but it will bear repetition, that 



THE GREAT ARGUMENT 83 

the use of the seance should, in his opinion, 
be carefully regulated as well as reverently 
conducted. Having once satisfied himself 
of the absolute existence of the unseen world, 
and of its proximity to our own, the inquirer 
has got the great gift which psychical investi- 
gation can give him, and thenceforth he can 
regulate his life upon the lines which the 
teaching from beyond has shown to be the 
best. There is much force in the criticism 
that too constant intercourse with the af- 
fairs of another world may distract our at- 
tention and weaken our powers in dealing 
with our obvious duties in this one. A se- 
ance, with the object of satisfying curiosity 
or of rousing interest, cannot be an elevating 
influence, and the mere sensation-monger 
can make this holy and wonderful thing as 
base as the over-indulgence in a stimulant. 
On the other hand, where the seance is used 
for the purpose of satisfying ourselves as to 
the condition of those whom we have lost, 
or of giving comfort to others who crave 
for a word from beyond, then it is, indeed, 
a blessed gift from God to be used with 
moderation and with thankfulness. Our 
loved ones have their own pleasant tasks in 



84 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

their new surroundings, and though they as- 
sure us that they love to clasp the hands 
which we stretch out to them, we should still 
have some hesitation in intruding to an un- 
reasonable extent upon the routine of their 
lives. 

A word should be said as to that fear of 
fiends and evil spirits which appears to have 
so much weight with some of the critics of 
this subject. When one looks more closely 
at this emotion it seems somewhat selfish 
and cowardly. These creatures are in truth 
our own backward brothers, bound for the 
same ultimate destination as ourselves, but 
retarded by causes for which our earth con- 
ditions may have been partly responsible. 
Our pity and sympathy should go out to 
them, and if they do indeed manifest at a 
seance, the proper Christian attitude is, as 
it seems to me, that we should reason with 
them and pray for them in order to help 
them upon their difficult way. Those who 
have treated them in this way have found a 
very marked difference in the subsequent 
communications. In Admiral Usborne 
Moore's " Glimpses of the Next State" there 



THE GREAT ARGUMENT 85 

will be found some records of an American 
circle which devoted itself entirely to mis- 
sionary work of this sort. There is some 
reason to believe that there are forms of 
imperfect development which can be helped 
more by earthly than by purely spiritual in- 
fluences, for the reason, perhaps, that they 
are closer to the material. 

In a recent case I was called in to en- 
deavour to check a very noisy entity which 
frequented an old house in which there were 
strong reasons to believe that crime had been 
committed, and also that the criminal was 
earth-bound. Names were given by the un- 
happy spirit which proved to be correct, 
and a cupboard was described, which was 
duly found, though it had never before been 
suspected. On getting into touch with the 
spirit I endeavoured to reason with it and 
to explain how selfish it was to cause misery 
to others in order to satisfy any feelings 
of revenge which it might have carried over 
from earth life. We then prayed for its 
welfare, exhorted it to rise higher, and re- 
ceived a very solemn assurance, tilted out at 
the table, that it would mend its ways. I 



86 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

have very gratifying reports that it has done 
so, and that all is now quiet in the old house. 
Let us now consider the life in the Beyond 
as it is shown to us by the new revelation. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE COMING WORLD 

We come first to the messages which tell 
us of the life beyond the grave, sent by those 
who are actually living it. I have already 
insisted upon the fact that they have three 
weighty claims to our belief. The one is, that 
they are accompanied by ' ' signs, ' ' in the Bib- 
lical sense, in the shape of " miracles" or phe- 
nomena. The second is, that in many cases 
they are accompanied by assertions about 
this life of ours which prove to be correct, 
and which are beyond the possible knowl- 
edge of the medium after every deduction 
has been made for telepathy or for uncon- 
scious memory. The third is, that they have 
a remarkable, though not a complete, simi- 
larity from whatever source they come. It 
may be noted that the differences of opinion 
become most marked when they deal with 
their own future, which may well be a mat- 

87 



88 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

ter of speculation to them as to us. Thus, 
upon the question of reincarnation there is 
a distinct cleavage, and though I am myself 
of opinion that the general evidence is 
against this oriental doctrine, it is none the 
less an undeniable fact that it has been main- 
tained by some messages which appear in 
other ways to be authentic, and, therefore, 
it is necessary to keep one's mind open on 
the subject. 

Before entering upon the substance of the 
messages I should wish to emphasize the 
second of these two points, so as to reinforce 
the reader's confidence in the authenticity 
of these assertions. To this end I will give 
a detailed example, with names almost exact. 
The medium was Mr. Phoenix, of Glasgow, 
with whom I have myself had some remark- 
able experiences. The sitter was Mr. Ernest 
Oaten, the President of the Northern 
Spiritual Union, a man of the utmost 
veracity and precision of statement. The 
dialogue, which came by the direct voice, a 
trumpet acting as megaphone, ran like 
this: — 

The Voice: Good evening, Mr. Oaten. 



THE COMING WORLD 89 

Mr. 0.: Good evening. Who are 
yon? 
The Voice : My name is Mill. You know 
my father. 
Mr. 0.: ISTo, I don't remember any- 
one of the name. 
The Voice: Yes, you were speaking to 
him the other day. 
Mr. 0.: To be sure. I remember 
now. I only met him easu- 
ally. 
The Voice : I want you to give him a mes- 
sage from me. 
Mr. 0.: What is it? 
The Voice : Tell him that he was not mis- 
taken at midnight on Tues- 
day last 
Mr. 0.: Very good. I mil say so. 
Have you passed long ? 
The Voice : Some time. But our time is 
different from yours. 
Mr. 0. : What were you? 
The Voice: A Surgeon. 

Mr. 0.: How did you pass? 
The Voice : Blown up in a battleship dur- 
ing the war. 
Mr. 0.: Anything more? 



90 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

The answer was the Gipsy song from "II 
Trovatore," very accurately whistled, and 
then a quick-step. After the latter, the voice 
said: "That is a test for father." 

This reproduction of conversation is not 
quite verbatim, but gives the condensed es- 
sence. Mr. Oaten at once visited Mr. Mill, 
who was not a Spiritualist, and found that 
every detail was correct. Young Mill had 
lost his life as narrated. Mr. Mill, senior, 
explained that while sitting in his study at 
midnight on the date named he had heard 
the Gipsy song from ' l II Trovatore, ■ ' which 
had been a favourite of his boy's, and being 
unable to trace the origin of the music, had 
finally thought that it was a freak of his 
imagination. The test connected with the 
quick-step had reference to a tune which the 
young man used to play upon the piccolo, 
but which was so rapid that he never could 
get it right, for which he was chaffed by the 
family. 

I tell this story at length to make the 
reader realise that when young Mill, and 
others like him, give such proofs of accu- 
racy, which we can test for ourselves, we are 
bound to take their assertions very seriously 



THE COMING WORLD 91 

when they deal with the life they are actu- 
ally leading, though in their very nature we 
can only check their accounts by comparison 
with others. 

Now let me epitomise what these asser- 
tions are. They say that they are exceed- 
ingly happy, and that they do not wish to 
return. They are among the friends whom 
they had loved and lost, who meet them when 
they die and continue their careers together. 
They are very busy on all forms of congenial 
work. The world in which they find them- 
selves is very much like that which they have 
quitted, but everything keyed to a higher 
octave. As in a higher octave the rhythm 
is the same, and the relation of notes to each 
other the same, but the total effect different, 
so it is here. Every earthly thing has its 
equivalent. Scoffers have guffawed over 
alcohol and tobacco, but if all things are re- 
produced it would be a flaw if these were not 
reproduced also. That they should be 
abused, as they are here, would, indeed, be 
evil tidings, but nothing of the sort has been 
said, and in the much discussed passage in 
i l Raymond, ' ' their production was alluded to 
as though it were an unusual, and in a way a 



92 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

humorous, instance of the resources of the 
beyond. I wonder how many of the preach- 
ers, who have taken advantage of this pas- 
sage in order to attack the whole new revela- 
tion, have remembered that the only other 
message which ever associated alcohol with 
the life beyond is that of Christ Himself, 
when He said: "I will not drink henceforth 
Of this fruit of the vine until that day when 
I drink it new with you in my Father's 
kingdom." 

This matter is a detail, however, and it is 
always dangerous to discuss details in a 
subject which is so enormous, so dimly seen. 
[As the wisest woman I have known remarked 
to me : " Things may well be surprising over 
there, for if we had been told the facts of 
this life before we entered it, we should 
never have believed it. ' ' In its larger issues 
this happy life to come consists in the de- 
velopment of those gifts which we possess. 
There is action for the man of action, intel- 
lectual work for the thinker, artistic, liter- 
ary, dramatic and religious for those whose 
God-given powers lie that way. What we 
have both in brain and character we carry 
over with us. No man is too old to learn, 



THE COMING WORLD 93 

for what lie learns lie keeps. There is no 
physical side to love and no child-birth, 
though there is close union between those 
married people who really love each other, 
and, generally, there is deep sympathetic 
friendship and comradeship between the 
sexes. Every man or woman finds a soul mate 
sooner or later. The child grows up to the 
normal, so that the mother who lost a babe 
of two years old, and dies herself twenty 
years later finds a grown-up daughter of 
twenty-two awaiting her coming. Age, 
which is produced chiefly by the mechanical 
presence of lime in our arteries, disappears, 
and the individual reverts to the full nor- 
mal growth and appearance of completed 
man — or womanhood. Let no woman mourn 
her lost beauty, and no man his lost strength 
or weakening brain. It all awaits them once 
more upon the other side. Nor is any de- 
formity or bodily weakness there, for all is 
normal and at its best. 

Before leaving this section of the subject, 
I should say a few more words upon the evi- 
dence as it affects the etheric body. This 
body is a perfect thing. This is a matter 
of consequence in these days when so many 



m THE VITAL MESSAGE 

of our heroes have been mutilated in the 
wars. One cannot mutilate the etheric body, 
and it remains always intact. The first 
words uttered by a returning spirit in the 
recent experience of Dr. Abraham "Wallace 
were "I have got my left arm again." The 
same applies to all birth marks, deformities, 
blindness, and other imperfections. None 
of them are permanent, and all will vanish 
in that happier life that awaits us. Such 
is the teaching from the beyond — that a per- 
fect body waits for each. 

"But," says the critic, "what then of the 
clairvoyant descriptions, or the visions 
where the aged father is seen, clad in the 
old-fashioned garments of another age, or 
the grandmother with crinoline and chig- 
non ? Are these the habiliments of heaven ? ' ' 
Such visions are not spirits, but they are pic- 
tures which are built up before us or shot 
by spirits into our brains or those of the 
seer for the purposes of recognition. Hence 
the grey hair and hence the ancient garb. 
When a real spirit is indeed seen it comes in 
another form to this, where the flowing robe, 
such as has always been traditionally as- 
cribed to the angels, is a vital thing which, 



THE COMING WORLD 95 

by its very colour and texture, proclaims the 
spiritual condition of the wearer, and is 
probably a condensation of that aura which 
surrounds us upon earth. 

It is a world of sympathy. Only those 
who have this tie foregather. The sullen 
husband, the flighty wife, is no longer there 
to plague the innocent spouse. All is sweet 
and peaceful. It is the long rest cure after 
the nerve strain of life, and before new ex- 
periences in the future. The circumstances 
are homely and familiar. Happy circles 
live in pleasant homesteads with every 
amenity of beauty and of music. Beautiful 
gardens, lovely flowers, green woods, pleas- 
ant lakes, domestic pets — all of these things 
are fully described in the messages of the 
pioneer travellers who have at last got news 
back to those who loiter in the old dingy 
home. There are no poor and no rich. The 
craftsman may still pursue his craft, but 
he does it for the joy of his work. Bach 
serves the community as best he can, while 
from above come higher ministers of grace, 
the ' ' Angels ' ' of holy writ, to direct and help. 
Above all, shedding down His atmosphere 
upon all, broods that great Christ spirit, 



96 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

the very soul of reason, of justice, and of 
sympathetic understanding, who has the 
earth sphere, with all its circles, under His 
very special care. It is a place of joy and 
laughter. There are games and sports of all 
sorts, though none which cause pain to lower 
life. Food and drink in the grosser sense 
do not exist, but there seem to be pleasures 
of taste, and this distinction causes some con- 
fusion in the messages upon the point. But 
above all, brain, energy, character, driving 
power, if exerted for good, makes a man a 
leader there as here, while unselfishness, pa- 
tience and spirituality there, as here, qualify 
the soul for the higher places, which have 
often been won by those very tribulations 
down here which seem so purposeless and so 
cruel, and are in truth our chances of spirit- 
ual quickening and promotion, without 
which life would have been barren and with- 
out profit. 

The revelation abolishes the idea of a 
grotesque hell and of a fantastic heaven, 
while it substitutes the conception of a 
gradual rise in the scale of existence without 
any monstrous change which would turn us 
in an instant from man to angel or devil. 



THE COMING WORLD 97 

The system, though different from previous 
ideas, does not, as it seems to me, run counter 
in any radical fashion to the old beliefs. In 
ancient maps it was usual for the carto- 
grapher to mark blank spaces for the unex- 
plored regions, with some such legend as 
"here are anthropophagi," or "here are 
mandrakes," scrawled across them. So in 
our theology there have been ill-defined areas 
which have admittedly been left unfilled, for 
what sane man has ever believed in such a 
heaven as is depicted in our hymn books, a 
land of musical idleness and barren monoto- 
nous adoration! Thus in furnishing a 
clearer conception this new system has noth- 
ing to supplant. It paints upon a blank 
sheet. 

One may well ask, however, granting that 
there is evidence for such a life and such a 
world as has been described, what about 
those who have not merited such a destina- 
tion? What do the messages from beyond 
say about these*? And here one cannot be 
too definite, for there is no use exchanging 
one dogma for another. One can but give 
the general purport of such information as 
has been vouchsafed to us. It is natural 



98 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

that those with whom we come in contact are 
those whom we may truly call the blessed, 
for if the thing be approached in a reverent 
and religious spirit it is those whom we 
should naturally attract. That there are 
many less fortunate than themselves is evi- 
dent from their own constant allusions to 
that regenerating and elevating missionary 
work which is among their own functions. 
They descend apparently and help others to 
gain that degree of spirituality which fits 
them for this upper sphere, as a higher stu- 
dent might descend to a lower class in order 
to bring forward a backward pupil. Such 
a conception gives point to Christ's remark 
that there was more joy in heaven over sav- 
ing one sinner than over ninety-nine just, 
for if He had spoken of an earthly sinner 
he would surely have had to become just in 
this life and so ceased to be a sinner before 
he had reached Paradise. It would apply 
very exactly, however, to a sinner rescued 
from a lower sphere and brought to a higher 
one. 

When we view sin in the light of modern 
science, with the tenderness of the modern 
conscience and with a sense of justice and 



THE COMING WORLD 99 

proportion, it ceases to be that monstrous 
cloud which darkened the whole vision of 
the mediaeval theologian. Man has been 
more harsh with himself than an all-merci- 
ful God will ever be. It is true that with 
all deductions there remains a great re- 
siduum which means want of individual ef- 
fort, conscious weakness of will, and culpa- 
ble failure of character when the sinner, like 
Horace, sees and applauds the higher while 
he follows the lower. But when, on the 
other hand, one has made allowances — and 
can our human allowance be as generous as 
God's? — for the sins which are the inev- 
itable product of early environment, for the 
sins which are due to hereditary and inborn 
taint, and to the sins which are due to clear 
physical causes, then the total of active sin 
is greatly reduced. Could one, for example, 
imagine that Providence, all-wise and all- 
merciful, as every creed proclaims, could 
punish the unfortunate wretch who hatches 
criminal thoughts behind the slanting brows 
of a criminal head? A doctor has but to 
glance at the cranium to predicate the crime. 
In its worst forms all crime, form Nero to 
Jack the Ripper, is the product of absolute 



100 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

lunacy, and those gross national sins to 
which allusion has been made seem to point 
to collective national insanity. Surely, then, 
there is hope that no very terrible inferno 
is needed to further punish those who have 
been so afflicted upon earth. Some of our 
dead have remarked that nothing has sur- 
prised them so much as to find who have 
been chosen for honour, and certainly, with- 
out in any way condoning sin, one could well 
imagine that the man whose organic make- 
up predisposed him with irresistible force in 
that direction should, in justice, receive con- 
dolence and sympathy. Possibly such a sin- 
ner, if he had not sinned so deeply as he 
might have done, stands higher than the 
man who was born good, and remained so, 
but was no better at the end of his life. The 
one has made some progress and the other 
has not. But the commonest failing, the 
one which fills the spiritual hospitals of the 
other world, and is a temporary bar to the 
normal happiness of the after-life, is the 
sin of Tomlinson in Kipling's poem, the 
commonest of all sins in respectable British 
circles, the sin of conventionality, of want 
of conscious effort and development, of a 



THE COMING WORLD 101 

sluggish spirituality, fatted over by a com- 
placent mind and by the comforts of life. 
It is the man who is satisfied, the man who 
refers his salvation to some church or higher 
power without steady travail of his own 
soul, who is in deadly danger. All churches 
are good, Christian or non-Christian, so long 
as they promote the actual spirit life of the 
individual, but all are noxious the instant 
that they allow him to think that by any 
form of ceremony, or by any fashion of 
creed, he obtains the least advantage over 
his neighbour, or can in any way dispense 
with that personal effort which is the only 
road to the higher places. This is, of course, 
as applicable to believers in Spiritualism as 
to any other belief. If it does not show in 
practice then it is vain. One can get 
through this life very comfortably follow- 
ing without question in some procession 
with a venerable leader. But one does not 
die in a procession. One dies alone. And 
it is then that one has alone to accept the 
level gained by the work of life. 

And what is the punishment of the unde- 
veloped soul ? It is that it should be placed 
where it will develop, and sorrow would 



102 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

seem always to be the forcing ground of 
souls. That surely is our own experience in 
life where the insufferably complacent and 
unsympathetic person softens and mellows 
into beauty of character and charity of 
thought, when tried long enough and high 
enough in the fires of life. The Bible has 
talked about the " Outer darkness where 
there is weeping and gnashing of teeth." 
The influence of the Bible has sometimes 
been an evil one through our own habit of 
reading a book of Oriental poetry and treat- 
ing it as literally as if it were Occidental 
prose. When an Eastern describes a herd 
of a thousand camels he talks of camels 
which are more numerous than the hairs of 
your head or the stars in the sky. In this 
spirit of allowance for Eastern expression, 
one must approach those lurid and terrible 
descriptions which have darkened the lives 
of so many imaginative children and sent 
so many earnest adults into asylums. From 
all that we learn there are indeed places of 
outer darkness, but dim as these uncom- 
fortable waiting-rooms may be, they all ad- 
mit to heaven in the end. That is the final 
destination of the human race, and it would 



THE COMING WORLD 103 

indeed be a reproach to the Almighty if it 
were not so. We cannot dogmatise upon 
this subject of the penal spheres, and yet we 
have very clear teaching that they are there 
and that the no-man's-land which separates 
"us from the normal heaven, that third 
heaven to which St. Paul seems to have been 
wafted in one short strange experience of 
his lifetime, is a place which corresponds 
with the Astral plane of the mystics and with 
the " outer darkness " of the Bible. Here 
linger those earth-bound spirits whose 
worldly interests have clogged them and 
weighed them down, until every spiritual 
impulse had vanished; the man whose life 
has been centred on money, on worldly am- 
bition, or on sensual indulgence. The one- 
idea'd man will surely be there, if his one 
idea was not a spiritual one. Nor is it nec- 
essary that he should be an evil man, if dear 
old brother John of Glastonbury, who loved 
the great Abbey so that he could never de- 
tach himself from it, is to be classed among 
earth-bound spirits. In the most material 
and pronounced classes of these are the 
ghosts who impinge very closely upon mat- 
ter and have been seen so often by those who 



104 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

have no strong psychic sense. It is prob- 
able, from what we know of the material 
laws which govern such matters, that a 
ghost could never manifest itself if it were 
alone, that the substance for the manifesta- 
tion is drawn from the spectator, and that 
the coldness, raising of hair, and other 
symptoms of which he complains are caused 
largely by the sudden drain upon his own 
vitality. This, however, is to wander into 
speculation, and far from that correlation 
of psychic knowledge with religion, which 
has been the aim of these chapters. 

By one of those strange coincidences, 
which seem to me sometimes to be more than 
coincidences, I had reached this point in my 
explanation of the difficult question of the 
intermediate state, and was myself desiring 
further enlightenment, when an old book 
•reached me through the post, sent by some- 
one whom I have never met, and in it is the 
following passage, written by an automatic 
writer, and in existence since 1880. It makes 
the matter plain, endorsing what has been 
said and adding new points. "Some cannot 
advance further than the borderland — such 
as never thought of spirit life and have lived 



THE COMING WORLD 105 

entirely for the earth, its cares and pleas- 
ures — even clever men and women, who 
have lived simply intellectual lives without 
spirituality. There are many who have 
misused their opportunities, and are now 
longing for the time misspent and wishing 
to recall the earth-life. They will learn 
that on this side the time can be redeemed, 
though at much cost. The borderland has 
many among the restless money-getters of 
earth, who still haunt the places where they 
had their hopes and joys. These are often 
the longest to remain . . . many are not un- 
happy. They feel the relief to be sufficient 
to be without their earth bodies. All pass 
through the borderland, but some hardly 
perceive it. It is so immediate, and there is 
no resting there for them. They pass on at 
once to the refreshment place of which we 
tell you. " The anonymous author, after re- 
cording this spirit message, mentions the in- 
teresting fact that there is a Christian in- 
scription in the Catacombs which runs: 
Nicefoktts Anima Dulcis in Refbigekio, 
"Mcephorus, a sweet soul in the refresh- 
ment place." One more scrap of evidence 



106 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

that the early Christian scheme of things 
was very like that of the modern psychic. 

So much for the borderland, the interme- 
diate condition. The present Christian 
dogma has no name for it, unless it be that 
nebulous limbo which is occasionally men- 
tioned, and is usually defined as the place 
where the souls of the just who died before 
Christ were detained. The idea of cross- 
ing a space before reaching a permanent 
state on the other side is common to many 
religions, and took the allegorical form of 
a river with a ferry-boat among the Ro- 
mans and Greeks. Continually, one comes 
on points which make one realise that far 
back in the world's history there has been a 
true revelation, which has been blurred and 
twisted in time. Thus in Dr. Muir's sum- 
mary of the Rig. Veda, he says, epitomising 
the beliefs of the first Aryan conquerors of 
India: " Before, however, the unborn 
part" (that is, the etheric body) "can com- 
plete its course to the third heaven it has to 
traverse a vast gulf of darkness, leaving be- 
hind on earth all that is evil, and proceed- 
ing by the paths the fathers trod, the spirit 
soars to the realms of eternal light, recovers 



THE COMING WORLD 107 

there his body in a glorified form, and ob- 
tains from God a delectable abode and en- 
ters upon a more perfect life, which is 
crowned with the fulfilment of all desires, is 
passed in the presence of the Gods and em- 
ployed in the fulfilment of their pleasure." 
If we substitute " angels" for "Gods" we 
must admit that the new revelation from 
modern spirit sources has much in common 
with the belief of our Aryan fathers. 

Such, in very condensed form, is the 
world which is revealed to us by these won- 
derful messages from the beyond. Is it an 
unreasonable vision ? Is it in any way op- 
posed to just principles? Is it not rather 
so reasonable that having got the clue we 
could now see that, given any life at all, this 
is exactly the line upon which we should ex- 
pect to move? Nature and evolution are 
averse from sudden disconnected develop- 
ments. If a human being has technical, lit- 
erary, musical, or other tendencies, they are 
an essential part of his character, and to 
survive without them would be to lose his 
identity and to become an entirely different 
man. They must therefore survive death if 
personality is to be maintained. But it is 



108 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

no use their surviving unless they can find 
means of expression, and means of expres- 
sion seem to require certain material agents, 
and also a discriminating audience. So also 
the sense of modesty among civilised races 
has become part of our very selves, and im- 
plies some covering of our forms if person- 
ality is to continue. Our desires and sym- 
pathies would prompt us to live with those 
we love, which implies something in the na- 
ture of a house, while the human need for 
mental rest and privacy would predicate the 
existence of separate rooms. Thus, merely 
starting from the basis of the continuity of 
personality one might, even without the reve- 
lation from the beyond, have built up some 
such sytsem by the use of pure reason and 
deduction. 

So far as the existence of this land of hap- 
piness goes, it would seem to have been more 
fully proved than any other religious con- 
ception within our knowledge. 

It may very reasonably be asked, how far 
this precise description of life beyond the 
grave is my own conception, and how far it 
has been accepted by the greater minds who 
have studied this subject? I would answer, 



THE COMING WORLD 109 

that it is my own conclusion as gathered 
from a very large amount of existing testi- 
mony, and that in its main lines it has for 
many years been accepted by those great 
numbers of silent active workers all over the 
world, who look upon this matter from a 
strictly religious point of view. I think 
that the evidence amply justifies us in this 
belief. On the other hand, those who have 
approached this subject with cold and cau- 
tious scientific brains, endowed, in many 
cases, with the strongest prejudices against 
dogmatic creeds and with very natural fears 
about the possible re-growth of theological 
quarrels, have in most cases stopped short 
of a complete acceptance, declaring that 
there can be no positive proof upon such 
matters, and that we may deceive ourselves 
either by a reflection of our own thoughts or 
by receiving the impressions of the medium. 
Professor Zollner, for example, says : ■ ' Sci- 
ence can make no use of the substance of in- 
tellectual revelations, but must be guided by 
observed facts and by the conclusions log- 
ically and mathematically uniting them" — 
a passage which is quoted with approval by 
Professor EeicEel, and would seem to be 



110 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

endorsed by the silence concerning the re- 
ligious side of the question which is ob- 
served by most of our great scientific sup- 
porters. It is a point of view which can well 
be understood, and yet, closely examined, it 
would appear to be a species of enlarged ma- 
terialism. To admit, as these observers do, 
that spirits do return, that they give every 
proof of being the actual friends whom we 
have lost, and yet to turn a deaf ear to the 
messages which they send would seem to be 
pushing caution to the verge of unreason. 
To get so far, and yet not to go further, is 
impossible as a permanent position. If, for 
example, in Raymond's case we find so many 
allusions to the small details of his home 
upon earth, which prove to be surprisingly 
correct, is it reasonable to put a blue pencil 
through all he says of the home which he 
actually inhabits ? Long before I had con- 
vinced my mind of the truth of things which 
appeared so grotesque and incredible, I had 
a long account sent by table tilting about the 
conditions of life beyond. The details 
seemed to me impossible and I set them 
aside, and yet they harmonise, as I now dis- 
cover, with other revelations. So, too, with 



THE COMING WORLD 111 

the automatic script of Mr. Hubert Wales, 
which has been described in my previous 
book. He had tossed it aside into a drawer 
as being unworthy of serious consideration, 
and yet it also proved to be in harmony. In 
neither of these cases was telepathy or the 
prepossession of the medium a possible ex- 
planation. On the whole, I am inclined to 
think that these doubtful or dissentient sci- 
entific men, having their own weighty stud- 
ies to attend to, have confined their reading 
and thought to the more objective side of 
the question, and are not aware of the vast 
amount of concurrent evidence which ap- 
pears to give us an exact picture of the life 
beyond. They despise documents which 
cannot be proved, and they do not, in my 
opinion, sufficiently realise that a general 
agreement of testimony, and the already es- 
tablished character of a witness, are them- 
selves arguments for truth. Some compli- 
cate the question by predicating the exist- 
ence of a fourth dimension in that world, but 
the term is an absurdity, as are all terms 
which find no corresponding impression in 
the human brain. "We have mysteries 
enough to solve without gratuitously intro- 



112 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

ducing fresh ones. When solid passes 
through solid, it is, surely, simpler to as- 
sume that it is done by a dematerialisation, 
and subsequent reassembly — a process 
which can, at least, be imagined by the hu- 
man mind — than to invoke an explanation 
which itself needs to be explained. 

In the next and final chapter I will ask 
the reader to accompany me in an examina- 
tion of the New Testament by the light of 
this psychic knowledge, and to judge how far 
it makes clear and reasonable much which 
was obscure and confused. 



CHAPTEE y 

IS IT THE SECOND DAWNl 

Theee are many incidents in the New 
Testament which might be taken as starting 
points in tracing a close analogy between 
the phenomenal events which are associated 
with the early days of Christianity, and 
those which have perplexed the world in con- 
nection with modern Spiritualism. Most of 
us are prepared to admit that the lasting 
claims of Christianity upon the human race 
are due to its own intrinsic teachings, which 
are quite independent of those wonders 
which can only have had a use in startling 
the solid complacence of an unspiritual race, 
and so directing their attention violently to 
this new system of thought. Exactly the 
same may be said of the new revelation. 
The exhibitions of a force which is beyond 
human experience and human guidance is 
but a method of calling attention. To re- 

113 



114 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

peat a simile which has been used elsewhere, 
it is the humble telephone bell which heralds 
the all-important message. In the case of 
Christ, the Sermon on the Mount was more 
than many miracles. In the case of this new 
development, the messages from beyond are 
more than any phenomena. A vulgar mind 
might make Christ's story seem vulgar, if it 
insisted upon loaves of bread and the bodies 
of fish. So, also, a vulgar mind may make 
psychic religion vulgar by insisting upon 
moving furniture or tambourines in the air. 
In each case they are crude signs of power, 
and the essence of the matter lies upon 
higher planes. 

It is stated in the second chapter of the 
Acts of the Apostles, that they, the Chris- 
tian leaders, were all "with one accord" in 
one place. "With one accord" expresses 
admirably those sympathetic conditions 
which have always been found, in psychic 
circles, to be conducive of the best results, 
and which are so persistently ignored by a 
certain class of investigators. Then there 
came "a mighty rushing wind," and after- 
wards "there appeared cloven tongues like 
unto fire and it sat upon each of them." 



IS IT THE SECOND DAWN? 115 

Here is a very definite and clear account of 
a remarkable sequence of phenomena. Now, 
let us compare with this the results which 
were obtained by Professor Crookes in his 
investigation in 1873, after he had taken 
every possible precaution against fraud 
which his experience, as an accurate observer 
and experimenter, could suggest. He says 
in his published notes: "I have seen lumi- 
nous points of light darting about, sitting on 
the heads of different persons" and then 
again: " These movements, and, indeed, I 
may say the same of every class of phenom- 
ena, are generally preceded by a peculiar 
cold air, sometimes amounting to a decided 
wind. I have had sheets of paper blown 
about by it. . . ." Now, is it not singular, 
not merely that the phenomena should be of 
the same order, but that they should come in 
exactly the same sequence, the wind first and 
the lights afterwards ? In our ignorance of 
etheric physics, an ignorance which is now 
slowly clearing, one can only say that there 
is some indication here of a general law 
which links those two episodes together in 
spite of the nineteen centuries which divide 
them. A little later, it is stated that "the 



116 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

place was shaken where they were assem- 
bled together." Many modern observers of 
psychic phenomena have testified to vibra- 
tion of the walls of an apartment, as if a 
heavy lorry were passing. It is, evidently, 
to such experiences that Paul alludes when 
he says : ' ' Our gospel came unto you not in 
word only, but also in power." The 
preacher of the New Revelation can most 
truly say the same words. In connection 
with the signs of the pentecost, I can most 
truly say that I have myself experienced 
them all, the cold sudden wind, the lambent 
misty flames, all under the mediumship of 
Mr. Phoenix, an amateur psychic of Glas- 
gow. The fifteen sitters were of one accord 
upon that occasion, and, by a coincidence, 
it was in an upper room, at the very top of 
the house. 

In a previous section of this essay, I have 
remarked that no philosophical explanation 
of these phenomena, known as spiritual, 
could be conceived which did not show that 
all, however different in their working, came 
from the same central source. St. Paul 
seems to state this in so many words when 
he says: "But all these worketh that one 



IS IT THE SECOND DAWN? 117 

and the selfsame spirit, dividing to every 
man severally as he will." Could our mod- 
ern speculation, forced upon us by the facts, 
be more tersely stated? He has just enu- 
merated the various gifts, and we find them 
very close to those of which we have experi- 
ence. There is first "the word of wisdom," 
"the word of knowledge" and "faith." All 
these taken in connection with the Spirit 
would seem to mean the higher communica- 
tions from the other side. Then comes 
healing, which is still practised in certain 
conditions by a highly virile medium, who 
has the power of discharging strength, los- 
ing just as much as the weakling gains, as 
instanced by Christ when He said: "Who 
has touched me ? Much virtue" (or power) 
"has gone out of me." Then we come upon 
the working of miracles, which we should 
call the production of phenomena, and 
which would cover many different types, 
such as apports, where objects are brought 
from a distance, levitation of objects or of 
the human frame into the air, the produc- 
tion of lights and other wonders. Then 
comes prophecy, which is a real and yet a 
fitful and often delusive form of medium- 



118 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

ship — never so delusive as among the early- 
Christians, who seem all to have mistaken 
the approaching fall of Jerusalem and the 
destruction of the Temple, which they could 
dimly see, as being the end of the world. 
This mistake is repeated so often and so 
clearly that it is really not honest to ignore 
or deny it. Then we come to the power of 
"discerning the spirits," which corresponds 
to our clairvoyance, and finally that curious 
and usually useless gift of tongues, which 
is also a modern phenomenon. I can re- 
member that some time ago I read the book, 
"I Heard a Voice," by an eminent barrister, 
in which he describes how his young daugh- 
ter began to write Greek fluently with all 
the complex accents in their correct places. 
Just after I read it I received a letter from 
a no less famous physician, who asked my 
opinion about one of his children who had 
written a considerable amount of script in 
mediaeval French. These two recent cases 
are beyond all doubt, but I have not had 
convincing evidence of the case where some 
unintelligible signs drawn by an unlettered 
man were pronounced by an expert to be in 
the Ogham or early Celtic character. As 



IS IT THE SECOND DAWN? 119 

the Ogham script is really a combination of 
straight lines, the latter case may be taken 
with considerable reserve. 

Thus the phenomena associated with the 
rise of Christianity and those which have 
appeared during the present spiritual fer- 
ment are very analogous. In examining the 
gifts of the disciples, as mentioned by Mat- 
thew and Mark, the only additional point is 
the raising of the dead. If any of them 
besides their great leader did in truth rise 
to this height of power, where life was actu- 
ally extinct, then he, undoubtedly, far 
transcended anything which is recorded of 
modern mediumship. It is clear, however, 
that such a power must have been very rare, 
since it would otherwise have been used to 
revive the bodies of their own martyrs, 
which does not seem to have been attempted. 
For Christ the power is clearly admitted, 
and there are little touches in the descrip- 
tion of how it was exercised by Him which 
are extremely convincing to a psychic stu- 
dent. In the account of how He raised 
Lazarus from the grave after he had been 
four days dead — far the most wonderful of 
all Christ's miracles — it is recorded that 



120 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

as He went down to the graveside He was 
"groaning." "Why was He groaning? No 
Biblical student seems to have given a satis- 
factory reason. But anyone who has heard 
a medium groaning before any great mani- 
festation of power will read into this pas- 
sage just that touch of practical knowledge, 
which will convince him of its truth. The 
miracle, I may add, is none the less wonder- 
ful or beyond our human powers, because it 
was wrought by an extension of natural law, 
differing only in degree with that which 
we can ourselves test and even do. 

Although our modern manifestations have 
never attained the power mentioned in the 
Biblical records, they present some features 
which are not related in the New Testa- 
ment. Clairaudience, that is the hearing of 
a spirit voice, is common to both, but the 
direct voice, that is the hearing of a voice 
which all can discern with their material 
ears, is a well-authenticated phenomenon 
now which is more rarely mentioned of old. 
So, too, Spirit-photography, where the cam- 
era records what the human eye cannot see, 
is necessarily a new testimony. Nothing is 
evidence to those who do not examine evi- 



IS IT THE SECOND DAWN? 121 

deuce, but I can attest most solenmly that I 
personally know of several cases where the 
image upon the plate after death has not 
only been unmistakable, but also has dif- 
fered entirely from any pre-existing photo- 
graph. 

As to the methods by which the early 
Christians communicated with the spirits, 
or with the "Saints" as they called their 
dead brethren, we have, so far as I know, 
no record, though the words of John: 
"Brothers, believe not every spirit, but try 
the spirits whether they are of God," show 
very clearly that spirit communion was a 
familiar idea, and also that they were 
plagued, as we are, by the intrusion of un- 
welcome spiritual elements in their inter- 
course. Some have conjectured that the 
"Angel of the Church," who is alluded to 
in terms which suggest that he was a human 
being, was really a medium sanctified to the 
use of that particular congregation. As we 
have early indications of bishops, deacons 
and other officials, it is difficult to say what 
else the "angel" could have been. This, 
however, must remain a pure speculation. 

Another speculation which is, perhaps, 



122 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

rather more fruitful is upon what principle 
did Christ select his twelve chief followers. 
Out of all the multitudes he chose twelve 
men. Why these particular ones ? It was 
not for their intelligence or learning, for 
Peter and John, who were among the most 
prominent, are expressly described as ' ' un- 
learned and ignorant men." It was not for 
their virtue, for one of them proved to be 
a great villain, and all of them deserted their 
Master in His need. It was not for their 
belief, for there were great numbers of be- 
lievers. And yet it is clear that they were 
chosen on some principle of selection since 
they were called in ones and in twos. In at 
least two cases they were pairs of brothers, 
as though some family gift or peculiarity 
might underlie the choice. 

Is it not at least possible that this gift 
was psychic power, and that Christ, as the 
greatest exponent who has ever appeared 
upon earth of that power, desired to sur- 
round Himself with others who possessed it 
to a lesser degree ? This He would do for 
two reasons. The first is that a psychic cir- 
cle is a great source of strength to one who 
is himself psychic, as is shown continually 



IS IT THE SECOND DAWN? 123 

in our own experience, where, with a sympa- 
thetic and helpful surrounding, an atmos- 
phere is created where all the powers are 
drawn out. How sensitive Christ was to 
such an atmosphere is shown by the remark 
of the Evangelist, that when He visited His 
own native town, where the townspeople 
could not take Him seriously, He was unable 
to do any wonders. The second reason may 
have been that He desired them to act as 
His deputies, either during his lifetime or 
after His death, and that for this reason 
some natural psychic powers were neces- 
sary. 

The close connection which appears to 
exist between the Apostles and the miracles, 
has been worked out in an interesting 
fashion by Dr. Abraham Wallace, in his lit- 
tle pamphlet " Jesus of Nazareth."* Cer- 
tainly, no miracle or wonder working, save 
that of exorcism, is recorded in any of the 
Evangelists until after the time when Christ 
began to assemble His circle. Of this circle 
the three who would appear to have been 
the most psychic were Peter and the two 

* Published at sixpence by the Light Publishing Co., 6, 
Queen Square, London, W.C. The same firm supplies Dr. Ellis 
Powell 's convincing little book on the same subject. 



IM THE VITAL MESSAGE 

fellow-fishermen, sons of Zebedee, John and 
James. These were the three who were 
summoned when an ideal atmosphere was 
needed. It will be remembered that when 
the daughter of Jairus was raised from the 
dead it was in the presence, and possibly: 
with the co-operation, of these three assis- 
tants. Again, in the case of the Trans- 
figuration, it is impossible to read the ac- 
count of that wonderful manifestation with- 
out being reminded at every turn of one's 
own spiritual experiences. Here, again, the 
points are admirably made in " Jesus of 
Nazareth, ? ' and it would be well if that little 
book, with its scholarly tone, its breadth of 
treatment and its psychic knowledge, was 
in the hands of every Biblical student. Dr. 
Wallace points out that the place, the sum- 
mit of a hill, was the ideal one for such a 
manifestation, in its pure air and freedom 
from interruption; that the drowsy state 
of the Apostles is paralleled by the members 
of any circle who are contributing psychic 
power; that the transfiguring of the face 
and the shining raiment are known phe- 
nomena ; above all, that the erection of three 
altars is meaningless, but that the alternate 



IS IT THE SECOND DAWN? 125 

reading, the erection of three booths or 
cabinets, one for the medium and one for 
each materialised form, would absolutely 
fulfil the most perfect conditions for getting 
results. This explanation of Wallace's is 
a remarkable example of a modern brain, 
with modern knowledge, throwing a clear 
searchlight across all the centuries and illu- 
minating an incident which has always been 
obscure. 

"When we translate Bible language into 
the terms of modern psychic religion the 
correspondence becomes evident. It does 
not take much alteration. Thus for "Lo, a 
miracle !"we say ' ' This is a manifestation. ' ' 
"The angel of the Lord" becomes "a high 
spirit. ' ' Where we talked of " a voice from 
heaven," we say "the direct voice." "His 
eyes were opened and he saw a vision" 
means "he became clairvoyant." It is only 
the occultist who can possibly understand 
the Scriptures as being a real exact record 
of events. 

There are many other small points which 
seem to bring the story of Christ and of the 
Apostles into very close touch with modern 
psychic research, and greatly support the 



126 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

close accuracy of some of the New Testa- 
ment narrative. One which appeals to me 
greatly is the action of Christ when He was 
asked a question which called for a sudden 
decision, namely the fate of the woman who 
had been taken in sin. What did He do? 
The very last thing that one would have ex- 
pected or invented. He stooped down be- 
fore answering and wrote with his finger in 
the sand. This he did a second time upon 
a second catch-question being addressed to 
Him. Can any theologian give a reason for 
such an action? I hazard the opinion that 
among the many forms of mediumship 
which were possessed in the highest form 
by Christ, was the power of automatic writ- 
ing, by which He summoned those great 
forces which were under His control to sup- 
ply Him with the answer. Granting, as I 
freely do, that Christ was preternatural, in 
the sense that He was above and beyond or- 
dinary humanity in His attributes, one may 
still inquire how far these powers were con- 
tained always within His human body, or 
how far He referred back to spiritual re- 
serves beyond it. When He spoke merely 
from His human body He was certainly 



IS IT THE SECOND DAWN? 127 

open to error, like the rest of us, for it is 
recorded how He questioned the woman of 
Samaria about her husband, to which she 
replied that she had no husband. In the 
case of the woman taken in sin, one can only 
explain His action by the supposition that 
He opened a channel instantly for the 
knowledge and wisdom which was preter- 
human, and which at once gave a decision in 
favor of large-minded charity. 

It is interesting to observe the effect 
which these phenomena, or the report of 
them, produced upon the orthodox Jews of 
those days. The greater part obviously dis- 
credited them, otherwise they could not have 
failed to become followers, or at the least 
to have regarded such a wonder-worker with 
respect and admiration. One can well 
imagine how they shook their bearded heads, 
declared that such occurrences were outside 
their own experience, and possibly pointed 
to the local conjuror who earned a few not 
over-clean denarii by imitating the phe- 
nomena. There were others, however, who 
could not possibly deny, because they either 
saw or met with witnesses who had seen. 
These declared roundly that the whole thing 



128 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

was of the devil, drawing from Christ one 
of those pithy, common-sense arguments in 
which He excelled. The same two classes 
of opponents, the scoffers and the diabolists, 
face us to-day. Verily the old world goes 
round and so do the events upon its surface. 
There is one line of thought which may 
be indicated in the hope that it will find 
development from the minds and pens of 
those who have studied most deeply the pos- 
sibilities of psychic power. It is at least 
possible, though I admit that under modern 
conditions it has not been clearly proved, 
that a medium of great power can charge 
another with his own force, just as a magnet 
when rubbed upon a piece of inert steel can 
turn it also into a magnet. One of the best 
attested powers of D. D. Home was that he 
could take burning coals from the fire with 
impunity and carry them in his hand. He 
could then — and this comes nearer to the 
point at issue — place them on the head of 
anyone who was fearless without their being 
burned. Spectators have described how the 
silver filigree of the hair of Mr. Carter Hall 
used to be gathered over the glowing ember, 
and Mrs. Hall has mentioned how she 



IS IT THE SECOND DAWN? 129 

combed out the ashes afterwards. Now, in 
this case, Home was clearly able to convey a 
power to another person, just as Christ, 
when He was levitated over the lake, was 
able to convey the same power to Peter, so 
long as Peter's faith held firm. The ques- 
tion then arises if Home concentrated all his 
force upon transferring such a power how: 
long would that power last? The experi- 
ment was never tried, but it would have 
borne very directly upon this argument. 
[For, granting that the power can be trans- 
ferred, then it is very clear how the Christ 
circle was able to send forth seventy disci- 
ples who were endowed with miraculous 
functions. It is clear also why new disciples 
had to return to Jerusalem to be "baptised 
of the spirit," to use their phrase, before 
setting forth upon their wanderings. !And 
when in turn they desired to send forth rep- 
resentatives would not they lay hands upon 
them, make passes over them and endeavour 
to magnetise them in the same way — if that 
word may express the process? Have we 
here the meaning of the laying on of hands 
by the bishop at ordination, a ceremony to 
which yast importance is still attached, but 



130 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

which may well be the survival of something 
really vital, the bestowal of the thaumaturgic 
power % When, at last, through lapse of time 
or neglect of fresh cultivation, the power ran 
out, the empty formula may have been car- 
ried on, without either the blesser or the 
blessed understanding what it was that the 
hands of the bishop, and the force which 
streamed from them, were meant to bestow. 
The very words "laying on of hands" would 
seem to suggest something different from a 
mere benediction. 

Enough has been said, perhaps, to show 
the reader that it is possible to put forward 
a view of Christ's life which would be in 
strict accord with the most modern psychic 
knowledge, and which, far from supplant- 
ing Christianity, would show the surprising 
accuracy of some of the details handed down 
to us, and would support the novel conclu- 
sion that those very miracles, which have 
been the stumbling block to so many truth- 
ful, earnest minds, may finally offer some 
very cogent arguments for the truth of the 
whole narrative. Is this then a line of 
thought which merits the wholesale condem- 
nations and anathemas hurled at it by those 



IS IT THE SECOND DAWN? 131 

who profess to speak in the name of religion ? 
At the same time, though we bring support 
to the New Testament, it would, indeed, be 
a misconception if these, or any such re- 
marks, were quoted as sustaining its literal 
accuracy — an idea from which so much 
harm has come in the past. It would, in- 
deed, be a good, though an unattainable 
thing, that a really honest and open-minded 
attempt should be made to weed out from 
that record the obvious forgeries and inter- 
polations which disfigure it, and lessen the 
value of those parts which are really above 
suspicion. Is it necessary, for example, to 
be told, as an inspired fact from Christ's 
own lips, that Zacharias, the son of Bara- 
chias,* was struck dead within the precincts 
of the Temple in the time of Christ, when, 
by a curious chance, Josephus has independ- 
ently narrated the incident as having oc- 
curred during the siege of Jerusalem, thirty- 
seven years later % This makes it very clear 
that this particular Gospel, in its present 
form, was written after that event, and that 
the writer fitted into it at least one other 

* The References are to Matthew, xxiii 35, and to Joiephus, 
Wars of the Jews, Book IV, Chapter 5. 



132 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

incident which had struck his imagination. 
Unfortunately, a revision by general agree- 
ment would be the greatest of all miracles, 
for two of the very first texts to go would be 
those which refer to the "Church," an in- 
stitution and an idea utterly unfamiliar in 
the days of Christ. Since the object of the 
insertion of these texts is perfectly clear, 
there can be no doubt that they are for- 
geries, but as the whole system of the 
Papacy rests upon one of them, they are 
likely to survive for a long time to come. 
The text alluded to is made further impos- 
sible because it is based upon the supposition 
that Christ and His fishermen conversed 
together in Latin or Greek, even to the ex- 
tent of making puns in that language. 
Surely the want of moral courage and intel- 
lectual honesty among Christians will seem 
as strange to our descendants as it appears 
marvellous to us that the great thinkers of 
old could have believed, or at least have 
pretended to believe, in the fighting sexual 
deities of Mount Olympus, 

Revision is, indeed, needed, and as I 
have already pleaded, a change of emphasis 
is also needed, in order to get the grand 



IS IT THE SECOND DAWN? 133 

Christian conception back into the current 
of reason and progress. The orthodox who, 
whether from humble faith or some other 
cause, do not look deeply into such matters, 
can hardly conceive the stumbling-blocks 
which are littered about before the feet of 
their more critical brethren. What is easy 
for faith is impossible for reflection. Such 
expressions as " Saved by the blood of the 
Lamb" or " Baptised by His precious blood" 
fill their souls with a gentle and sweet emo- 
tion, while upon a more thoughtful mind 
they have a very different effect. 

Apart from the apparent injustice of 
vicarious atonement, the student is well 
aware that the whole of this sanguinary 
metaphor is drawn really from the Pagan 
rites of Mithra, where the neophyte was ac- 
tually placed under a bull at the ceremony 
of the Taukobolitjm, and was drenched, 
through a grating, with the blood of the 
slaughtered animal. Such reminiscences of 
the more brutal side of Paganism are not 
helpful to the thoughtful and sensitive mod- 
ern mind. But what is always fresh and 
always useful and always beautiful, is the 
memory of the sweet Spirit who wandered 



134 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

on the hillsides of Galilee; who gathered 
the children around him; who met his 
friends in innocent good-fellowship; who 
shrank from forms and ceremonies, craving 
always for the inner meaning ; who forgave 
the sinner; who championed the poor, and 
who in every decision threw his weight upon 
the side of charity and breadth of view. 
"When to this character you add those won- 
drous psychic powers already analysed, you 
do, indeed, find a supreme character in the 
world's history who obviously stands nearer 
to the Highest than any other. "When one 
compares the general effect of His teaching 
with that of the more rigid churches, one 
marvels how in their dogmatism, their insist- 
ence upon forms, their exclusiveness, their 
pomp and their intolerance, they could have 
got so far away from the example of their 
Master, so that as one looks upon Him and 
them, one feels that there is absolute deep 
antagonism and that one cannot speak of 
the Church and Christ, but only of the 
Church or Christ. 

And yet every Church produces beautiful 
souls, though it may be debated whether 
"produces" or " contains" is the truthful 



IS IT THE SECOND DAWN? 135 

word. We have but to fall back upon our 
own personal experience if we have lived 
long and mixed much with our fellow-men. 
I have myself lived during the seven most 
impressionable years of my life among Jes- 
uits, the most maligned of all ecclesiastical 
orders, and I have found them honourable 
and good men, in all ways estimable outside 
the narrowness which limits the world to 
Mother Church. They were athletes, schol- 
ars, and gentlemen, nor can I ever remem- 
ber any examples of that casuistry with 
which they are reproached. Some of my 
best friends have been among the parochial 
clergy of the Church of England, men of 
sweet and saintly character, whose pecuni- 
ary straits were often a scandal and a re- 
proach to the half-hearted folk who ac- 
cepted their spiritual guidance. I have 
known, also, splendid men among the Non- 
conformist clergy, who have often been the 
champions of liberty, though their views 
upon that subject have sometimes seemed 
to contract when one ventured upon their 
own domain of thought. Each creed has 
brought out men who were an honour to the 
human race, and Manning or Shrewsbury, 



136 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

Gordon or Dolling, Booth or Stopford 
Brooke, are all equally admirable, however 
diverse the roots from which they grow. 
Among the great mass of the people, too, 
there are very many thousands of beautiful 
souls who have been brought up on the old- 
fashioned lines, and who never heard of 
spiritual communion or any other of those 
matters which have been discussed in these 
essays, and yet have reached a condition of 
pure spirituality such as all of us may envy. 
Who does not know the maiden aunt, the 
widowed mother, the mellowed elderly man, 
who live upon the hilltops of unselfishness, 
shedding kindly thoughts and deeds around 
them, but with their simple faith deeply 
rooted in anything or everything which has 
come to them in a hereditary fashion with 1 
the sanction of some particular authority? 
I had an aunt who was such an one, and 
can see her now, worn with austerity and 
charity, a small, humble figure, creeping to' 
church at all hours from a house which was 
to her but a waiting-room between services,' 
while she looked at me with sad, wondering, 1 
grey eyes. Such people have often reached 
by instincl, and in spite of dogma, heights 



IS IT THE SECOND DAWN? 137 

to which no system of philosophy can ever 
raise us. 

But making full allowance for the high 
products of every creed, which may be only 
a proof of the innate goodness of civilised 
humanity, it is still beyond all doubt that 
Christianity has broken down, and that this 
breakdown has been brought home to every- 
one by the terrible castrophe which has be- 
fallen the world. Can the most optimistic 
apologist contend that this is a satisfactory 
outcome from a religion which has had the 
unopposed run of Europe for so many cen- 
turies ? Which has come out of it worst, the 
Lutheran Prussian, the Catholic Bavarian, 
or the peoples who have been nurtured by 
the Greek Church? If we, of the West, 
have done better, is it not rather an older 
and higher civilisation and freer political 
institutions that have held us back from all 
the cruelties, excesses and immoralities 
which have taken the world back to the dark 
ages? It will not do to say that they have 
occurred in spite of Christianity, and that 
Christianity is, therefore, not to blame. It 
is true that Christ's teaching is not to blame, 
for it is often spoiled in the transmission. 



138 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

But Christianity has taken over control of 
the morals of Europe, and should have the 
compelling force which would ensure that 
those morals would not go to pieces upon 
the first strain. It is on this point that 
Christianity must be judged, and the judg- 
ment can only be that it has failed. It has 
not been an active controlling force upon the 
minds of men. And why 9 It can only be 
because there is something essential which 
is wanting. Men do not take it seriously. 
Men do not believe in it. Lip service is the 
only service in innumerable cases, and even 
lip service grows fainter. Men, as distinct 
from women, have, both in the higher and 
lower classes of life, ceased, in the greater 
number of cases, to show a living interest 
in religion. The churches lose their grip 
upon the people — and lose it rapidly. Small 
inner circles, convocations, committees, as- 
semblies, meet and debate and pass resolu- 
tions of an ever narrower character. But 
the people go their way and religion is dead, 
save in so far as intellectual culture and 
good taste can take its place. But when 
religion is dead, materialism becomes active, 



IS IT THE SECOND DAWN? 139 

and what active materialism may produce 
has been seen in Germany. 

Is it not time, then, for the religious 
bodies to discourage their own bigots and 
sectarians, and to seriously consider, if 
only for self-preservation, how they can get 
into line once more with that general level 
of human thought which is now so far in 
front of them ? I say that they can do more 
than get level — they can lead. But to do 
so they must, on the one hand, have the firm 
courage to cut away from their own bodies 
all that dead tissue which is but a disfigure- 
ment and an encumbrance. They must 
face difficulties of reason, and adapt them- 
selves to the demands of the human intelli- 
gence which rejects, and is right in reject- 
ing, much which they offer. Finally, they 
must gather fresh strength by drawing in 
all the new truth and all the new power 
which are afforded by this new wave of in- 
spiration which has been sent into the world 
by God, and which the human race, deluded 
and bemused by the would-be clever, has 
received with such perverse and obstinate 
incredulity. When they have done all this, 
they will find not only that they are leading 



140 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

the world with an obvious right to the lead- 
ership, but, in addition, that they have come 
round once more to the very teaching of 
that Master whom they have so long misrep- 
resented. 



APPENDICES 



DOCTOK GELEY'S EXPERIMENTS 

Nothing could be imagined more fantas- 
tic and grotesque than the results of the re- 
cent experiments of Professor Geley, in 
Prance. Before such results the brain, even 
of the trained psychical student, is dazed, 
while that of the orthodox man of science, 
who has given no heed to these develop- 
ments, is absolutely helpless. In the ac- 
count of the proceedings which he read 
lately before the Institut General Psycholo- 
gique in Paris, on January of last year, Dr. 
Geley says : "I do not merely say that there 
has been no fraud; I say, ' there has been no 
possibility of fraud.' In nearly every case 
the materialisations were done under my 
eyes, and I have observed their whole gene- 
sis and development.' ' He adds that, in 
the course of the experiments, more than a 

141 



142 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

hundred experts, mostly doctors, checked 
the results. 

These results may be briefly stated thus. 
A peculiar whitish matter exuded from the 
subject, a girl named Eva, coming partly 
through her skin, partly from her hands, 
partly from the orifices of her face, espe- 
cially her mouth. This was photographed 
repeatedly at every stage of its production, 
these photographs being appended to the 
printed treatise. This stuff, solid enough 
to enable one to touch and to photograph, 
has been called the ectoplasm. It is a new 
order of matter, and it is clearly derived 
from the subject herself, absorbing into her 
system once more at the end of the experi- 
ment. It exudes in such quantities as to 
entirely cover her sometimes as with an 
apron. It is soft and glutinous to the touch, 
but varies in form and even in colour. Its 
production causes pain and groans from the 
subject, and any violence towards it would 
appear also to affect her. A sudden flash 
of light, as in a flash-photograph, may or 
may not cause a retraction of the ectoplasm, 
but always causes a spasm of the subject. 
When re-absorbed, it leaves no trace upon 



DOCTOR GELEY'S EXPERIMENTS 143 

the garments through which it has passed. 

This is wonderful enough, but far more 
fantastic is what has still to be told. The 
most marked property of this ectoplasm, 
very fully illustrated in the photographs, 
is that it sets or curdles into the shapes of 
human members — of fingers, of hands, of 
faces, which are at first quite sketchy and 
rudimentary, but rapidly coalesce and de- 
velop until they are undistinguishable from 
those of living beings. Is not this the very 
strangest and most inexplicable thing that 
has ever yet been observed by human eyes % 
These faces or limbs are usually the size of 
life, but they frequently are quite minia- 
tures. Occasionally they begin by being 
miniatures, and grow into full size. On 
their first appearance in the ectoplasm the 
limb is only on one plane of matter, a mere 
flat appearance, which rapidly rounds itself 
off, until it has assumed all three planes and 
is complete. It may be a mere simulacrum, 
like a wax hand, or it may be endowed with 
full power of grasping another hand, with 
every articulation in perfect working order. 

The faces which are produced in this 
amazing way are worthy of study. They 



144* THE VITAL MESSAGE 

do not appear to have represented anyone 
who has ever been known in life by Doctor 
Geley.* My impression after examining 
them is that they are much more likely to 
be within the knowledge of the subject, be- 
ing girls of the French lower middle class 
type, such as Eva was, I should imagine, in 
the habit of meeting. It should be added 
that Eva herself appears in the photograph 
as well as the simulacra of humanity. The 
faces are, on the whole, both pretty and 
piquant, though of a rather worldly and un- 
refined type. The latter adjective would 
not apply to the larger and most elaborate 
photograph, which represents a very beauti- 
ful young woman of a truly spiritual cast of 
face. Some of the faces are but partially 
formed, which gives them a grotesque or 
repellant appearance. What are we to 
make of such phenomena ? There is no use 
deluding ourselves by the idea that there 
may be some mistake or some deception. 
There is neither one nor the other. Apart 
from the elaborate checks upon these par- 
ticular results, they correspond closely with 

*Dr. Geley writes to me that they are unknown either to 
him or to the medium. 



DOCTOR GELEY'S EXPERIMENTS 145 

those got by Lombroso in Italy, by Schrenk- 
Notzing in Germany, and by other careful 
observers. One tiling we must bear in mind 
constantly in considering them, and that is 
their abnormality. At a liberal estimate, it 
is not one person in a million who possesses 
such powers — if a thing which is outside our 
volition can be described as a power. It is 
the mechanism of the materialisation me- 
dium which has been explored by the acute 
brain and untiring industry of Doctor Geley, 
and even presuming, as one may fairly pre- 
sume, that every materialising medium goes 
through the same process in order to pro- 
duce results, still such mediums are exceed- 
ingly rare. Dr. Geley mentions, as an an- 
alogous phenomenon on the material side, 
the presence of dermoid cysts, those mysteri- 
ous formations, which rise as small tumors 
in any part of the body, particularly above 
the eyebrow, and which when opened by the 
surgeon are found to contain hair, teeth or 
embryonic bones. There is no doubt, as he 
claims, some rough analogy, but the dermoid 
cyst is, at least, in the same flesh and blood 
plane of nature as the foetus inside it, while 



146 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

in the ectoplasm we are dealing with an 
entirely new and strange development. 

It is not possible to define exactly what 
occurs in the case of the ectoplasm, nor, on 
account of its vital connection with the me- 
dium and its evanescent nature, has it been 
separated and subjected to even the rough- 
est chemical analysis which might show 
whether it is composed of those earthly ele- 
ments with which we are familiar. Is it 
rather some coagulation of ether which in- 
troduces an absolutely new substance into 
our world ? Such a supposition seems most 
probable, for a comparison with the analo- 
gous substance examined at Dr. Crawford's 
seances at Belfast, which is at the same time 
hardly visible to the eye and yet capable of 
handling a weight of 150 pounds, suggests 
something entirely new in the way of matter. 

But setting aside, as beyond the present 
speculation, what the exact origin and na- 
ture of the ectoplasm may be, it seems to 
me that there is room for a very suggestive 
line of thought if we make Geley's experi- 
ments the starting point, and lead it in the 
direction of other manifestations of psycho- 
material activity. First of all, let us take 



DOCTOR GELEY'S EXPERBIENTS 14*7 

Crookes' classic experiments with Katie 
King, a result which for a long time stood 
alone and isolated but now can be ap- 
proached by intermittent but definite stages. 
Thus we can well suppose that during those 
long periods when Florrie Cook lay in the 
laboratory in the dark, periods which lasted 
an hour or more upon some occasions, the 
ectoplasm was flowing from her as from 
Eva. Then it was gathering itself into a 
viscous cloud or pillar close to her frame; 
then the form of Katie King was evolved 
from this cloud, in the manner already de- 
scribed, and finally the nexus was broken 
and the completed body advanced to present 
itself at the door of communication, show- 
ing a person different in every possible at- 
tribute save that of sex from the medium, 
and yet composed wholly or in part from 
elements extracted from her senseless body. 
So far, Geley's experiments throw a strong 
explanatory light upon those of Crookes. 
And here the Spiritualist must, as it seems 
to me, be prepared to meet an objection 
more formidable than the absurd ones of 
fraud or optical delusion. It is this. If 
the body of Katie King the spirit is derived 



148 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

from the body of Florrie Cook the psychic, 
then what assurance have we that the life 
therein is not really one of the personalities 
out of which the complex being named 
Florrie Cook is constructed ? It is a thesis 
which requires careful handling. It is not 
enough to say that the nature is manifestly 
superior, for supposing that Florrie Cook 
represented the average of a number of 
conflicting personalities, then a single one 
of these personalities might be far higher 
than the total effect. Without going deeply 
into this problem, one can but say that the 
spirit's own account of its own personality 
must count for something, and also that an 
isolated phenomenon must be taken in con- 
junction with all other psychic phenomena 
when we are seeking for a correct explana- 
tion. 

But now let us take this idea of a human 
being who has the power of emitting a visi- 
ble substance in which are formed faces 
which appear to represent distinct individ- 
ualities, and in extreme cases develop into 
complete independent human forms. Take 
this extraordinary fact, and let us see 
whether, by an extension or modification of 



DOCTOR GELEY'S EXPERIMENTS 149 

this demonstrated process, we may not get 
some sort of clue as to the modus operandi 
in other psychic phenomena. It seems to 
me that we may, at least, obtain indications 
which amount to a probability, though not 
to a certainty, as to how some results, 
hitherto inexplicable, are attained. It is at 
any rate a provisional speculation, which 
may suggest a hypothesis for future observ- 
ers to destroy, modify, or confirm. 

The argument which I would advance is 
this. If a strong materialisation medium 
can throw out a cloud of stuff which is actual- 
ly visible, may not a medium of a less pro- 
nounced type throw out a similar cloud 
with analogous properties which is not 
opaque enough to be seen by the average 
eye, but can make an impression both on the 
dry plate in the camera and on the clair- 
voyant faculty? If that be so — and it 
would not seem to be a very far-fetched 
proposition — we have at once an explana- 
tion both of psychic photographs and of the 
visions of the clairvoyant seer. When I 
say an explanation, I mean of its superficial 
method of formation, and not of the forces 
at work behind, which remain no less a mys- 



150 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

tery even when we accept Dr. Geley's state- 
ment that they are "ideoplastic." 

Here we have, I think, some attempt at 
a generalisation, which might, perhaps, be 
useful in evolving some first signs of order 
out of this chaos. It is conceivable that the 
thinner emanation of the clairvoyant would 
extend far further than the thick material 
ectoplasm, but have the same property of 
moulding itself into life, though the life 
forms would only be visible to the clair- 
voyant eye. Thus, when Mr. Tom Tyrrell, 
or any other competent exponent, stands 
upon the platform his emanation fills the 
hall. Into this emanation, as into the visi- 
ble ectoplasm in Geley's experiments, break 
the faces and forms of those from the other 
side who are attracted to the scene by their 
sympathy with various members of the audi- 
ence. They are seen and described by Mr. 
Tyrrell, who with his finely attuned senses, 
carefully conserved (he hardly eats or 
drinks upon a day when he demonstrates), 
can hear that thinner higher voice that calls 
their names, their old addresses and their 
messages. So, too, when Mr. Hope and 
Mrs. Buxton stand with their hands joined 



DOCTOR GELEY'S EXPERIMENTS 151 

over the cap of the camera, they are really 
throwing out a misty ectoplasm from which 
the forms loom up which appear upon the 
photographic plate. It may be that I mis- 
take an analogy for an explanation, but I 
put the theory on record for what it is worth. 



B 

A PAETICULAR INSTANCE 

I have been in touch with a series of 
tevents in America lately, and can vouch 
for the facts as much as any man can vouch 
for facts which did not occur to himself. 
I have not the least doubt in my own mind 
that they are true, and a more remarkable 
double proof of the continuity of life has, 
I should think, seldom been published. A 
book has recently been issued by Harpers, 
of New York, called " The Seven Purposes." 
In this book the authoress, Miss Margaret 
Cameron, describes how she suddenly de- 
veloped the power of automatic writing. 
She was not a Spiritualist at the time. Her 
hand was controlled and she wrote a quantity 
of matter which was entirely outside her 
own knowledge or character. Upon her 
doubting whether her sub-conscious self 
might in some way be producing the writ- 

152 



A PARTICULAR INSTANCE 153 

ing, which was partly done by planchette, 
the script was written upside down and from 
right to left, as though the writer was seated 
opposite. Such script could not possibly be 
written by the lady herself. Upon making 
enquiry as to who was using her hand, the 
answer came in writing that it was a certain 
Fred Gaylord, and that his object was to get 
a message to his mother. The youth was un- 
known to Miss Cameron, but she knew the 
family and forwarded the message, with the 
result that the mother came to see her, ex- 
amined the evidence, communicated with the 
son, and finally, returning home, buried all 
her evidences of mourning, feeling that the 
boy was no more dead in the old sense than 
if he were alive in a foreign country. 

There is the first proof of preternatural 
agency, since Miss Cameron developed so 
much knowledge which she could not have 
normally acquired, using many phrases and 
ideas which were characteristic of the de-' 
ceased. But mark the sequel. Gaylord was 
merely a pseudonym, as the matter was so 
private that the real name, which we will 
put as Bridger, was not disclosed. A few 
months after the book was published Miss 



154 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

Cameron received a letter from a stranger 
living a thousand miles away. This letter 
and the whole correspondence I have seen. 
The stranger, Mrs. Mcol, says that as a test 
she would like to ask whether the real name 
given as Fred Gaylord in the book is not 
Fred Bridger, as she had psychic reasons for 
believing so. Miss Cameron replied that 
it was so, and expressed her great surprise 
that so secret and private a matter should 
have been correctly stated. Mrs. Mcol then 
explained that she and her husband, both 
connected with journalism and both abso- 
lutely agnostic, had discovered that she had 
the power of automatic writing. That while 
using this power she had received communi- 
cations purporting to come from Fred Brid- 
ger whom they had known in life, and that 
upon reading Miss Cameron's book they had 
received from Fred Bridger the assurance 
that he was the same person as the Fred 
Gaylord of Miss Cameron. 

Now, arguing upon these facts, and they 
would appear most undoubtedly to be facts, 
what possible answer can the materialist 
or the sceptic give to the assertion that they 
are a double proof of the continuity of per- 



A PARTICULAR INSTANCE 155 

sonality and the possibility of communica- 
tion? Can any reasonable system of tele- 
pathy explain how Miss Cameron discovered 
the intimate points characteristic of young 
Gaylord % And then, how are we afterwards, 
by any possible telepathy, to explain the 
revelation to Mrs. Mcol of the identity of 
her communicant, Fred Bridger, with the 
Fred Gaylord who had been written of by 
Miss Cameron. The case for return seems 
to me a very convincing one, though I con-, 
tend now, as ever, that it is not the return 
of the lost ones which is of such cogent in- 
terest as the message from the beyond which 
they bear with them. 



'C 

SPIRIT PHOTOGKAPHY 

On this subject I should recommend the 
reader to consult Coates' " Photographing 
the Invisible," which states, in a thoughtful 
and moderate way, the evidence for this 
most remarkable phase, and illustrates it 
with many examples. It is pointed out that 
here, as always, fraud must be carefully 
guarded against, haying been admitted in 
the case of the French spirit photographer, 
Buguet. 

There are, however, a large number of 
cases where the photograph, under rigid 
test conditions in which fraud has been abso- 
lutely barred, has reproduced the features 
of the dead. Here there are limitations and 
restrictions which call for careful study and 
observation. These faces of the dead are 
in some cases as contoured and as recog- 
nisable as they were in life, and correspond 

156 



SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY 157 

with no pre-existing picture or photograph. 
One such case absolutely critic-proof is 
enough, one would think, to establish sur- 
vival, and these valid cases are to be counted 
not in ones, but in hundreds. On the other 
hand, many of the likenesses, obtained 
under the same test conditions, are obvi- 
ously simulacra or pictures built up by 
some psychic force, not necessarily by the 
individual spirits themselves, to represent 
the dead. In some undoubtedly genuine 
cases it is an exact, or almost exact, repro- 
duction of an existing picture, as if the 
conscious intelligent force, whatever it 
might be, had consulted it as to the former 
appearance of the deceased, and had then 
built it up in exact accordance with the 
original. In such cases the spirit face may 
show as a flat surface instead of a contour. 
Rigid examination has shown that the exist- 
ing model was usually outside the ken of 
the photographer. 

Two of the bravest champions whom 
Spiritualism has ever produced, the late 
W. T. Stead and the late Archdeacon Colley 
— names which will bulk large in days to 
come — attached great importance to spirit 



158 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

photography as a final and incontestable 
proof of survival. In his recent work, 
"Proofs of the Truth of Spiritualism" 
(Kegan Paul), the eminent botanist, Pro- 
fessor Henslow, has given one case which 
would really appear to be above criticism. 
He narrates how the inquirer subjected a 
sealed packet of plates to the Crewe circle 
without exposure, endeavoring to get a 
psychograph. Upon being asked on which 
plate he desired it, he said "the fifth." 
Upon this plate being developed, there was 
found on it a copy of a passage from the 
Codex Alexandrinus of the New Testament 
in the British Museum. Eeproductions, 
both of the original and of the copy, will be 
found in Professor Henslow 's book. 

I have myself been to Crewe and have had 
results which would be amazing were it not 
that familiarity blunts the mind to miracles. 
Three marked plates brought by myself, and 
handled, developed and fixed by no hand but 
mine, gave psychic extras. In each case I 
saw the extra in the negative when it was 
still wet in the dark room. I reproduce in 
Plate I a specimen of the results, which is 
enough in itself to prove the whole case of 




I. IMPRESSION RECEIVED UPON A MARKED PLATE 

WHICH NEVER WENT OUT OF THE AUTHOR'S HANDS, 
SAVE WHEN IT WAS IN THE CARRIER. THERE IS A 
PARTIAL MATERIALISATION BEHIND. IN FRONT IS AN 
INSCRIPTION SIGNED "t. COLLET" 






> ^ 




II. SPECIMEN OF ARCHDEACOX COLLEY S WRITIXG 

DURIXG HIS LIFETIME 




III. PHOTOGRAPH IX LIFE OF LIEUT. WILL. HEWAT 

MACKENZIE 




IV. PHOTOGRAPH OF LIEUT. WILL. HEWAT MACKEN- 
ZIE, TAKEN SOME MONTHS AFTER HIS DEATH, IN THE 
CIRCUMSTANCES DESCRIBED IN THE TEXT 



SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY 159 

survival to any reasonable mind. The three 
sitters are Mr. Oaten, Mr. Walker, and my- 
self, I being obscured by the psychic cloud. 
In this cloud appears a message of welcome 
to me from the late Archdeacon Colley. A 
specimen of the Archdeacon's own hand- 
writing is reproduced in Plate II for the 
purpose of comparison. Behind, there is 
an attempt at materialisation obscured by 
the cloud. The mark on the side of the 
plate is my identification mark. I trust that 
I make it clear that no hand but mine ever 
touched this plate, nor did I ever lose sight 
of it for a second save when it was in the 
carrier, which was conveyed straight back 
to the dark room and there opened. What 
has any critic to say to that ? 

By the kindness of those fearless pioneers 
of the movement, Mr. and Mrs. Hewat 
Mackenzie, I am allowed to publish another 
example of spirit photography. The cir- 
cumstances were very remarkable. The 
visit of the parents to Crewe was unproduc- 
tive and their plate a blank save for their 
own presentment. Returning disappointed 
to London they managed, through the me- 



160 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

diumship of Mrs. Leonard, to get into touch 
with their boy, and asked him why they 
had failed. He replied that the conditions 
had been bad, but that he had actually suc- 
ceeded some days later in getting on to the 
plate of Lady Glenconnor, who had been to 
Crewe upon a similar errand. The parents 
communicated with this lady, who replied 
saying that she had found the image of a 
stranger upon her plate. On receiving a 
print they at once recognised their son, and 
could even see that, as a proof of identity, 
he had reproduced the bullet wound on his 
left temple. No. 3 is their gallant son as 
he appeared in the flesh, No. 4 is his reap- 
pearance after death. The opinion of a 
miniature painter who had done a picture of 
the young soldier is worth recording as evi- 
dence of identity. The artist says: " After 
painting the miniature of your son Will, I 
feel I know every turn of his face, and am 
quite convinced of the likeness of the psy- 
chic photograph. All the modelling of the 
brow, nose and eyes is marked by illness — 
especially is the mouth slightly contracted 
— but this does not interfere with the real 



SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY 161 

form. The way the hair grows on the brow 
and temple is noticeably like the photograph 
taken before he was wounded." 



D 

THE CLAIRVOYANCE OF MES. B. 

At the time of this volume going to press 
the results obtained by clients of this me- 
dium have been forty-two successes out of 
fifty attempts, checked and docketted by the 
author. This series forms a most conclusive 
proof of spirit clairvoyance. An attempt 
has been made by Mr. B. P. Benson, who 
examined some of the letters, to explain the 
results upon the grounds of telepathy. He 
admits that "The tastes, appearance and 
character of the deceased are often given, 
and many names are introduced by the me- 
dium, some not traceable, but most of them 
identical with relations or friends." Such 
an admission would alone banish thought- 
reading as an explanation, for there is no 
evidence in existence to show that this power 
ever reaches such perfection that one who 
possesses it could draw the image of a dead 

162 



THE CLAIRVOYANCE OF MRS. B. 163 

man from your brain, fit a correct name to 
him, and then associate him with all sorts of 
definite and detailed actions in which he 
was engaged. Such an explanation is not 
an explanation but a pretence. But even 
if one were to allow such a theory to pass, 
there are numerous incidents in these ac- 
counts which could not be explained in such 
a fashion, where unknown details have been 
given which were afterwards verified, and 
even where mistakes in thought upon the 
part of the sitter were corrected by the me- 
dium under spirit guidance. Personally I 
believe that the medium's own account of 
how she gets her remarkable results is the 
absolute truth, and I can imagine no other 
fashion in which they can be explained. 
She has, of course, her bad days, and the 
conditions are always worst when there is an 
inquisitorial rather than a religious atmos- 
phere in the interview. This intermittent 
character of the results is, according to my 
experience, characteristic of spirit clair- 
voyance as compared with thought-reading, 
which can, in its more perfect form, become 
almost automatic within certain marked 
limits. I may add that the constant prac- 



164 THE VITAL MESSAGE 

tice of some psychical researchers to take no 
notice at all of the medium's own account of 
how he or she attains results, but to substi- 
tute some complicated and unproved ex- 
planation of their own, is as insulting as it is 
unreasonable. It has been alleged as a slur 
upon Mrs. B's results and character that 
she has been twice prosecuted by the police. 
This is, in fact, not a slur upon the medium 
but rather upon the law, which is in so bar- 
barous a condition that the true seer fares 
no better than the impostor, and that no defi- 
nite psychic principles are recognised. A 
medium may under such circumstances be a 
martyr rather than a criminal, and a convic- 
tion ceases to be a stain upon the character. 



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